


Apostate

by ilgaksu



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Bisexuality, Casual Sex, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Keith/Lance - Freeform, F/F, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Gay Keith (Voltron), Growing Up, Korean Keith (Voltron), Lovers to Friends, M/M, Multi, Mutual Pining, Panic Attacks, Post-Break Up, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery, Season/Series 07 Spoilers, Separation Anxiety
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-15
Updated: 2019-04-04
Packaged: 2019-06-27 23:31:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 45,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15695607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilgaksu/pseuds/ilgaksu
Summary: “So,” Hunk says, “I gotta say, Lancey Lance, it sounds like overall things could be better, you know?”Lance snorts wetly and scrubs the back of his hand over his eyes.“Something like that, yeah.”*In which Lance falls out of love, out of faith, and into something else entirely.





	1. Chapter 1

##  a·pos·tate

 (ə-pŏs′tāt′, -tĭt)

_ n. _

One who has abandoned one's religious faith, a political party, one's principles, or a cause.

[Middle English, from Old French, from Late Latin  apostata , from Greek  apostatēs , from  aphistanai ,  _ to revolt _ ; see  **apostasy** .]

 

*

 

The morning Allura leaves for her latest diplomatic mission - something to with Arusian trade policy - Lance goes with her to the loading bay. He goes because it’s habit, because it’s familiarity, because the ritual of it is part of him now, after nearly six years. Allura in her flight suit, hair twisted back firmly from her face, is beautiful. But then, she always has been. It’s not new. It sends something through him - a pang of feeling that sings strangely, ricocheting into a turmoil in his stomach. He can’t call it regret.  

They walk to the elevator platform, ignoring the respectful nods of the guards on-duty. The elevator is made from glass, parts like cracking an eggshell. Seals around them like a cocoon. 

“Good morning, Lance,” Allura says softly into the silence. 

Lance, busy preoccupying himself with staring through the glass as they rise through the levels - watching the routines of technology and hope slip by - gives up the act and looks her in the eyes. She looks utterly composed to an outsider, and she almost fools him too. But familiarity, remember? He can’t see a hint of red about her eyes. He thinks:  _ didn’t you even cry? Didn’t I even make you cry?  _

“You don’t know how it’ll turn out yet,” he replies after a beat, belated, swallowing around a resigned, fracturing feeling in his chest - his ribs parting like a birdcage, letting something long held close escape. 

“I don’t,” she replies, simply, “But I didn’t know what else to say. How are you doing?” 

The loading bay approaches. Lance looks away, looks back. 

He says, honestly: “Better than I expected.” 

And it’s true. When he’d woken up today, he’d felt less like his chest was caving in and more like something hollowed out, all echoes. 

“Were you planning to not look at me at all?” Allura sounds a little hurt. A little piqued. 

“I hadn’t figured that part out yet,” Lance confesses, “It’s been a while since I’ve done this.”  

It’s not nerves. Allura has always made Lance nervous, on some level - every smile sank down into the pit of his stomach and fizzed there, turning him into something gold-blooded and capable and desperate to impress her. And that had been shored up over time, turned into surety, but the nerves had lived there still - resurfacing, sometimes transformed into excitement, sometimes not. The nerves had been good, had reminded him not to take any of it for granted. 

“Done this?” The curl of her mouth is a question. 

“Since I’ve not known how I’m supposed to be around you.” 

For a moment, they just look at each other. Lance is twenty-four next month. They first kissed six years ago, in the chilled, sterile loading bay in front of their lions, adrenaline-sick and blood-streaked in their flight suits. Then for the second time in front of all the crowds celebrating, victory singing along their skins. They’d been caught up in it, in having won and in each other. Lance still remembers how - when Allura had thrown her arms around his neck - how loud people, total strangers, had hollered, wolf whistles littering the sunset. Because it was like something out of a storybook, wasn’t it? Hadn’t it been? A boy from Cuba and an alien princess. It had never occurred to them that characters are just that, cut out of paper and pasted down, their boundaries perfect and laid out, and when you closed the book and walked away, they stayed there. Paused. Pristine. 

People aren’t like that. People are always going on someplace else, and either you keep pace - either you catch up, or you drift apart. It’s just convergence. 

“Can you kiss me goodbye?” Allura asks him. It’s not something she’s ever had to ask for before. It’s just been there. “For good luck?” 

There’s something that trembles in her face, but she holds it in. Lance thinks briefly about the power of rituals, of the habits we build - their power to hold us. There has never been anyone else for Lance, not anyone that’s gotten so close and stuck, instead of ending up on the other side of him somehow: only it’s gone and happened. 

“I don’t want to cause a fuss,” she says, “You know people will ask questions, but I understand if you don’t -”

If he doesn’t want to touch her. 

Lance clears his throat. 

“Sure, Princess,” he replies, softly. “Anything for my best girl.” 

 

*

 

There’s an awards ceremony in the afternoon. It’s been a while since the last one, and the absence of Allura is there - in the silence and the space of the empty room. She usually teases him about the uniform, her gaze hot with pleasure. She kicks him out of the door and into the world beyond before he can fix his collar a sixth time, already starched to _rigor mortis_ as it is. This time, he sits for a while, just for a while, and then gets up and fixes his collar himself for a seventh time, just because there’s no one to stop him from fussing. He checks his eyes for any telltale giveaways and goes out to meet the others. Game face: on. 

It’s still weird to have escorts salute him as he approaches. He’s never sure how to acknowledge it. Shiro is always the picture of abashed grace, the personification of a humble leader, and isn’t that just Shiro all over? Pidge usually doesn’t look up from her tablet. Hunk goes bright red, even still, in a way that’s charming on him. Or rather, he did: Lance doubts they’ll see Hunk today. He hadn’t mentioned it in their last holo-call. Nah, Hunk will still be out somewhere in Apia right now. Lance misses him. 

And Keith? Keith sweeps past with an expression easier to translate as aloof boredom than discomfort. But Lance spent too long out in confined space with Keith and he knows better. 

“Major McClain,” one of the escorts greets him, snapping into a salute. 

The title is one Lance has gotten used to hearing with it becoming an easy thing. The promotions have come through the years, along with the accolades - part of a way of formalising a debt of gratitude, part a way of keeping up the ties to the Garrison, part a way of managing the protocol issue of cadets needing the security clearance of a Council member. Lance can still remember being eighteen, stood in the doorway of the briefing room, being swiftly promoted to an officer under Veronica’s approving eyes. 

“At ease, soldier,” he murmurs now, and the escort relaxes back into parade rest. What is she, like, seventeen? Lance feels old all of a sudden. The age he was, when - 

He looks away. His smile morphs into one of genuine pleasure when he spots Pidge, tugging irritably at the hem of her jacket. 

“Pidgenator!” he crows, picks her up and spins her. She allows it, face deliberately stoic, but her eyes are sparkling. 

“I distinctly remember telling you to drop that,” she tells him. 

“Drop it?” Lance pretends to mishear. “Oh, okay, sure,” and lets go of her. She lands, stumbles to steady footing, and laughs. Adjusts her glasses. 

“Asshole.”

“Are we early?” Lance asks, looking around the room, which is gently filling with all the higher-ups. No one has made any moves to approach him or Pidge yet - it’s like they’re set apart, which Lance appreciates right now. He knows afterwards he’ll have to shake a lot of hands, but being able to drop the rehearsed smile for a bit is a plus. 

“Nah,” Pidge shakes her head, “They’re just running late.” 

The foyer of the Captain Adam Wyatt Memorial Hall is a study in grey marble and endless names, unravelling all over the walls in chiseled font, the letters themselves glowing a faint, warm white. Stone, something made to stand as a last defence. Light, something that reaches out beyond, illuminating for those following behind. Lance can see why this is the design Shiro pushed for in the end. 

“Again?” 

“Some of us have work to do, Lance,” he hears, and spins on his heel, already rolling his eyes. Keith’s smirk is firmly in place as he strikes out across the floor towards them. People part in front of him, fall back, eyes drawing across him, lingering, before finally gravitating towards Shiro at his side. With Shiro in the pale grey of his Commander’s dress, his hair ghost-white, Keith looks like his shadow.  

“You’re just mad because you had leave last month,” Lance manages, airily, because he can feel the weight of concern in Shiro’s eyes, can pinpoint the exact second they land on him. “Don’t get jealous now.” 

He’s doing pretty well at holding it together, Lance thinks, but then Shiro - bleeding heart Shiro - has to go and ruin Lance’s lucky streak. Lance  _ knows _ the moment Shiro opens his mouth it’s all about to come crashing down. 

“Lance,” Shiro says, with a voice that settles on him like a blanket. “Glad you could make it. How are you holding up?” 

“Not too bad!” Lance says, faux brightly, seeing Pidge and Keith’s faces shift towards curious and confused, respectively. “How about you? How’s that, uh -” 

“It’s hard, the first time,” Shiro continues, gently, holding and trapped Lance’s gaze in his like something magnetised. “Even when you both feel it’s for the best. You’ll make it through, both of you - I said the same thing to Allura - but if you need anything, anything at all, let me know.” 

“Allura told you?” Lance hears himself saying. “When?” 

When had she had time? It had been later on last night when they’d talked - after she’d headed back from some diplomatic dinner. Hadn’t Shiro been there, Lance thinks now, a little frantically -

Yes. That was it. They’d escorted each other. Had she told Shiro her plans beforehand? 

Had Lance really been second in line to know about the end of his own relationship? 

The worst part is, Lance thinks, watching Shiro flounder now, realising at the same moment Lance does, Shiro really does get it. He does. They’re standing in a hall named for someone Shiro loved, left, and then lost. Shiro is closer to getting it - to getting Lance - than any of them, in this moment. He catches a glance of Pidge, open-mouthed, staring between them, and looks away sharply. He very deliberately pretends Keith isn’t there. 

“Shit, Lance,” Pidge begins, but Lance cuts her off with an outstretched hand. 

“It’s fine,” he tells her, “It’s totally mutual, it’s just -” He looks up, around at the crowd of officers and escorts, on a base where gossip is rife and everyone loves a new story to dull the boredom of routine. “Can we do this later?” he asks, sounding more pleading than he’d been going for, but - 

The cameras are arriving now. He reminds himself that meltdowns are not on the schedule today. Shiro is doing the wounded bear eyes at him. Lance manages a small smile in his direction. 

“It’s not on you,” Lance tells him.  He means it, even - especially - because it hurts. Because it isn’t. Whatever Allura needed to have the strength to finally snap the thread of years and familiarity and firsts that had bound them, even when they’d fallen out of whatever had spun the thread in the first place -

Whatever Allura needed was whatever Allura needed. It’s not like she’d had any clue in how to go about this either.

 

*

 

“Lance, can we talk?” Allura had said, and Lance had known in her face when he’d looked up at her from the window seat. He’d known then that it was happening, that the event horizon had finally arrived. 

And he’d also known then, in a way that he hadn’t at eighteen, how much vulnerability there was in her: had known that if he’d said, “No,” if he’d pushed back, she might have dropped it. 

But that’s the thing with event horizons, with things like eclipses: even if you delay it, even if you pushed the sun out of orbit to keep it alight in the sky, all you’ve done is fight against gravity. It’s something that will have to realign itself. Next time - and there would have been a _next time_ \- it might even have been him to begin it. So she’d waited for him to answer, all of that in her eyes, and he’d said, “Sure. What's up?” and waited for her to sit down. 

There’s no good way to say  _ we don’t love each other like we used to,  _ but they’d gotten pretty close, talking into the night. 

“You were the best first choice I could have ever had,” she’d said, and Lance had tried to laugh it off because that was easier than feeling gutted by the evidence of how well she knew him. How was he supposed to find someone who could know him like that again? Maybe it was safer to keep things as they were, where they loved but were no longer in love. 

He knew they couldn’t do that. They’d tried for a while. 

“I was gunning to be your last, too,” he muttered, “Like, that’s what we were going for. Wasn’t it?” and she’d grabbed both of his hands in hers. 

“That’s what we were going for,” she’d replied, “That’s what I wanted too.” 

Then they’d both cried, and he’d held her, or she’d held him, it was kind of a blur and maybe kind of both -  

And then that was it. They were stood on the other side of it, and they were both intact. As she’d gotten up to leave, she’d turned to him. 

“Thank you,” she said, “You were lovely. You are lovely.” 

“You’re welcome,” he’d managed back. And then, “You should sleep. You’re leaving early tomorrow.” 

“Goodnight, love.” 

“I -” Lance had started, stopped. Cleared his throat. Tried again. “I don’t think you should call me that for a while. If we’re doing this.”

“Oh,” she replied, looking embarrassed. It had probably just slipped out. Habitual. “Yes. You’re probably right.” 

 

*

 

“MFE pilots at our five o’clock,” Keith says, snapping Lance out of it and back into where he is right now, stood in a starched collar and trying not to climb out of his own skin. 

“That’s it, Keith?” Pidge whirls on him. “That’s all you have to add? That’s really all you -”

“I doubt Lance wants them overhearing, okay?” Keith retorts, scowling, which is so considerate, in the way Keith often is - earnest, a little awkward, unexpected - that Lance just blinks, temporarily blindsided.

It’s been a good few months since he’s been around Keith, and he can’t parse out the scowl into something translatable, but before he has a chance the MFE squadron show up on the scene. Precisely at their five o’clock. Of course. As usual, it’s James Griffin leading the pack, Leifsdottir hovering behind to his right. Pidge immediately captures her to ask about how her new prosthetic is working out, which leaves them with Griffin and Kinkade. Lance is pretty sure he spotted Rizavi taking a turn around the floor with Veronica, their heads bent close together, intent and serious and networking up a storm. 

Shit. He still has to tell Veronica. He misses half of Griffin’s opening greeting, only tunes back in when James’ gaze falls on him. 

“....Major McClain,” James manages, after a moment. This time, Lance’s smile is fake sincerity glossed over sheer pettiness. 

“ _Captain_ Griffin.” 

Fuck, sometimes he loves the whole ranking thing. James nods, jaw tightening, and turns back to the others. Given all the rumours floating around about them, watching Keith and James interact is like gaining front seats at the circus. Lance knows there’ll soon be a hotbed of speculation about him and Allura. But for now, the fact the leader of Voltron supposedly keeps being seen in the vicinity of Griffin’s private quarters - in the middle of the night - is winner of this week’s hot gossip. Lance is almost grateful to them, but then he remembers how fucking weird it is - how fucking weird it is watching them interact with each other knowing they’re - 

You know what. Pick your euphemism. Whatever. It’s fucking weird. 

“Captain,” Keith says, nodding at James’s salute, and it’s not remotely flirtatious - a fact that is so blatantly pointless Lance can’t help but be astounded by it. It’s like they truly think they’re just - what? Colleagues? Acquaintances?

Lance can’t ever imagine, ever in his whole life, acting so indifferent to someone he’s -  

Whatever. 

Do they even _like_ each other? Lance knows Keith shows liking in a bizarre way, he always has. Even after six years, it’s just been him and his space wolf, with Krolia and Shiro as anchors. After Axca, which Keith had snuffed out real fast after it begun, that’d been it. But he and James are just - just stood here, exchanging small talk about the MFE plane updates, letting Shiro be a buffer. It just blows Lance’s mind. 

He turns to Kinkade, who is watching him watch the two of them with a single, devastatingly arched eyebrow. Lance feels caught out, especially when he shrugs at Lance and says, “It is what it is.”

Good to know Lance’s poker face hasn’t improved any, then.  

“Right,” Lance replies, “Cool.”

He’s thankfully saved from them all by the announcement the ceremony is about to begin. It allows Lance to pretend at being a better version of himself - more competent, more palatable, more heroic - for a few hours. Afterwards, Veronica finds him hiding out in one of the side rooms, looks at him speculatively, and says, “You wanna go swing by home?” 

Lance knows the offer is loaded, that they’ll talk in the car, that she’ll get the bad news out of him and he’ll have to explain it all over again. And again, and again, because that’s how bad news works. 

And even so, Lance says, “Please.” 

 

*

 

Lance’s parents still live close to the base. It’s barely an hour in the van before they’re pulling up the driveway - Veronica swiping her military ID under the noses of each checkpoint guard, driving with the same kind of careless efficiency she always has. The neighbours barely blink at the distinctive Garrison transport, or at Veronica in her epaulettes and heels, at Lance for being, you know, Lance. 

“You going to tell Mama yet?” Veronica says, and her mouth curves, sympathetic, when Lance shakes his head, answering in the split second between her cutting the engine and the front door swinging open. 

Zoe is barrelling down the porch steps and into Lance’s arms before he’s cleared the open car door: he catches her, swings her, and she screams delightedly. 

"Tío!" 

It sits oddly young on her now, the routine. It contrasts with the dyed hair, the heavy eyeshadow, the quasi-political t-shirts hanging off her shoulders. The nose ring she’d gotten, asking Lance to take her on the last anniversary on his disappearance, glints in the light. The trip had been partly to get them both away from the house, and partly because she’d known no one could’ve protested. She lands, barefooted, like a cat and grins at him. Lance’s heart aches. He’s never going to call her on it, even teasingly, because then she might stop. 

“Santi told me you got a boyfriend,” he says instead. Some things are sacrosanct, but there’s always other ammunition, and she screeches out some kind of protest. 

“He’s a boy!”

“Uh huh,” Lance is smiling so hard it hurts a little. “A boy.”

“We’re friends!”

“A boy who _happens_ to be a friend. A likely story.” 

“You’re _horrible_ ,” she informs him, hugs him quick and fleeting, and darts back into the house. 

Lance leans against the car, closes his eyes, and breathes in the smell of warm stone and sunlight. Veronica locks up around him, silently, working around his presence: this, too, is part of their routine. Each time he comes home, he cements it a little clearer into his memory, carves the fact of it back into the bedrock of his existence. 

The wonder of it: to go home to a place full of people who love him. The wonder of it: that he _can._

“I’m heading in,” Veronica calls to him from the step. Lance hums an acknowledgement without opening his eyes. 

The car is hot against his back. He can hear cicadas singing. He remembers, suddenly, how the first time he felt the rain on Earth in two years, he’d stood there and cried, overwhelmed  - by the naked simplicity of his own longing, even as he got the very thing he was after. How he’d locked eyes with Keith, of all people, on his way back into the base. How the way Keith had looked at him - with total understanding - it was as though he’d been able to discern between the fresh water and salt on Lance’s skin. 

“You good?” Keith had asked, awkwardly, and Lance had grinned back, red-eyed, and said, “Never better.” 

When Lance pushes his way indoors, his mother is hovering in the doorway between the hall and the lounge. Sometimes she still watches him, even after all this time, with such a strained kind of hope Lance can barely stand it. 

“Good journey?” she asks, as he crouches to remove his boots. 

“Knowing I was gonna see you guys?” Lance feels the corners of his mouth hook up again. “Couldn't pass fast enough,” and steps forward to hug her. 

She folds totally into his arms now, his chin atop her head, and isn’t that just one of the things they never tell you about adulthood: waking up to the realisation that your parents are fragile too. He lets her hold him for longer than necessary - tells himself that it’s her holding him, that he isn’t clinging back just as hard - and then she steps back, expression smoothing. 

“Go wash up before dinner,” she tells him, and Lance nods, snags the plastic bag of his civilian clothes Veronica brought out of the car for him, and heads upstairs to his room. 

It’s not an exact replica of the one in his childhood, the one in the house before Lance left, but that house was obliterated by the war. Veronica told him once, when they were getting drunk together on leave, that the Garrison had swooped in and gone through all of it during the early investigation, never saying why to his family, and that afterwards his father had tidied it all up for his mother’s sake. That they’d kept it perfectly preserved and still and waiting. A bated breath of a place. 

Lance had laughed, slammed back another shot, feeling his face lighting up with heat. He’d gone, “Oh my God, Veronica, they better not have found -” 

“They probably did,” Veronica cuts across him, relentless. “Accept it. Mourn it. Move on,” and then she’d laughed as Lance just put his head down on the bar, both of them laughing like the biggest tragedy out of this whole thing was the discovery of Lance’s dirty magazines. 

This room, the one Lance enters now, is a ragtag collection of his childhood - some of his things, a handful, salvaged and held in a shoebox by his family as they packed up and fled underground, retreating from the skyline of enemy ships. In this way, they’d carried him with them, carried him on their backs. 

This room, like him, is all that is left.

Someone’s slept in the bed recently, the covers turned down. Probably Zoe. He won’t ask her about it. She’ll only blame Santi. Lance looks up at the new glow in the dark stars stuck to the ceiling - they’re a different shape, less worn than the ones in his memory, but it’s the thought that counts and he does count it. He peels himself out of his dress uniform, hangs it up. _Getting a dressing down_ , they call it - when they make you into something smaller, something lesser, when they put you under their thumb: but Lance feels more and more himself with each new addition from the plastic bag. Ripped jeans, a cotton t-shirt that smells like detergent, socks.

He goes downstairs.  Santi’s sprawled on the couch - in a position that can’t be comfortable, Lance catches himself thinking, before remembering what it was like to hit his own growth spurt. Nothing about growing up is comfortable. 

“Move up,” Lance says, and Santi rolls his eyes but does, and then puts his feet in Lance’s lap. 

“Shouldn’t you be helping set the table?” Lance asks after a moment. Santi shrugs and looks up from his phone. 

“Shouldn’t you?” 

_ No _ , Lance thinks,  _ I’m a guest,  _ and then catches himself thinking it. Lance shrugs. Tilts his head back, sinks into his surroundings, and breathes. Just breathes. 

 

*

 

“Santi told me Mama’s been calling you in the middle of the night again,” Veronica tells him on the drive to base the next morning. Lance, drowsing in the early morning, cracks open an eye. 

“Yeah,” he admits. 

“Is that why you didn’t say anything about Allura?” 

“Yup,” Lance crosses his arms, feeling Veronica’s eyes on him, and turns his face to look out of the window. Arizona slips by them, so smoothly it’s like the streets are parting around the speed of the transport, leaving them suspended here, in this moment. Out of time. “She’s worried enough about me.” 

Veronica’s pulling a face, Lance can just sense it. Ugh, sisters.

“What do you want me to do?” he asks into the quiet, sounding angrier than he intended. “Just leave it when she calls? Not pick up? You know she won’t take that again.” 

“Yeah,” Veronica sounds displeased. She’s always hated it when Lance was right, which was often, which was always when it came to this, thank you very much. He’s the expert in his own disappearing act. “I was there, Lance.” 

Or perhaps not. It’s the matter-of-fact tone that does it. Lance winces and opens his eyes, half-realised nap fully ruined.  

“It’s only every so often now,” Lance says. “When it gets really bad. Around, you know, anniversaries. Or something. Sometimes it’s out of the blue, so it’s not like - I can’t predict what’s going to set her off, so it’s not like I can -”

“You can’t stop it, Lance.” Veronica sounds very calm. They’re approaching the first checkpoint now, the Garrison’s silhouette taking up the whole skyline. “It’s not on you to stop it.”

She sighs. 

“It’s bullshit.” Lance knows he’s complaining, but it’s not about Mama. It’s about - it’s about all of it.  

Veronica pats his knee. 

“It is,” she says, “But sometimes bullshit gets better,” and then reaches for her ID.  

  
  


*

 

“So,” Hunk says, “I gotta say, Lancey Lance, it sounds like overall things could be better, you know?” 

Lance snorts wetly and scrubs the back of his hand over his eyes. 

“Something like that, yeah.” 

Hunk makes a low, comforting humming noise. It crackles oddly through the holo-screen speakers, made tinny with distance. It is the early morning where he is, and the light bathes him, syrupy, the rising humidity already sending a faint sheen over his skin. Lance loves him, feels it hit him very abruptly and has to tell Hunk, so he does. Hunk laughs. 

“You too, my guy,” he says fondly. “You know, you could always peace out for a while. Come on out here. We could hang out, I could cook for you. It’s been ages since I cooked for you.” 

“I know,” Lance does know. “I - I can’t, buddy.” 

“Can’t or won’t?” Hunk tilts his head, considering Lance through the holo-screen. “The universe will still be there when you get back, dude. If you go back.” 

“I’d have to go back,” Lance argues. It’s a well-worn argument. “What else am I gonna do, Hunk? Seriously?” 

“Seriously?” Hunk shrugs. “Whatever you want. Lance, we saved the world. They owe us one. No one can begrudge you taking some time out, you know?” 

Lance chews on his lip.

“Come on,” Hunk presses, “You’ve been going from crisis to crisis since we were, like, seventeen.”

“There was a war.” 

It’s a lame excuse. Hunk rolls his eyes. 

“Yeah? I noticed? I remember it. My point is you died. More than once. And we did it, sure. We saved what we could save. But if you don’t - if you don’t ever figure out what you could be outside of Voltron and the Garrison and your family then - what was the point of it all, if not to be, you know, happy someday?” 

“Allura and I were happy,” Lance protests. They had been. It had been all-consuming, overwhelming, Lance undone by adoration. Hunk sighs. 

“Not what I meant and you know that.” There’s a pause. “So, you know, when I saw my parents like that - in that - in that work camp -” Hunk’s voice shakes. 

“Hunk,” Lance says softly. 

“No, no we’re doing this. When I saw them, I decided I wasn’t just going to get them out of there. I decided I was going to get them away, that I was going to get _us_ away. That’s what kept me showing up every day. The decision that one day, when I could, I was going to stop. Just stop for a bit. So last year, when I saw that chance to say it, to say that I was done, for now, I took it. And it didn’t fix anything, but it paid off that promise I’d made, to myself, you get me? It paid it off.” 

Lance gets him. He does. 

“You’re planning to come back, though,” he says, partly for reassurance. 

“Sure. A tactical retreat isn’t the same as running away.”

Lance nods. Hunk smiles at him, crooked and sweet. 

“Besides, I miss you guys too.” He turns and looks over his shoulder, out of sight. “Right, I gotta go, Shay's calling - but I’ll call you back when I can, yeah?” 

“Yeah, yeah,” Lance finds himself smiling, warmed through. “Go.” 

“I’m going.” Here Hunk hesitates, looking piercingly at Lance. “Just. Think about what I’m saying, right? Say you will. Lie to me if you have to.” 

“Okay.” 

“You’re good as you are. No space cats, no armour, no bayards. Just as you are. That shit isn’t what makes you, you know -” 

“Okay! Go already!” 

After the screen blacks out, Lance lies down, splayed out on his back, staring at his ceiling. Then, he sits up and heads for Shiro’s office. 

 

*

 

“I want to be doing something,” Lance says, “I’ve got to be doing something, so if you have any new assignments or missions or - if there’s something going -” 

Shiro looks up from his desk with a wry smile. 

“Good evening to you too, Lance,” he replies, which is how Lance glances at the clock and realises the absolute Godforsaken hour that it is. 

Embarrassment isn’t the word for it. Lance knows Shiro still works too late and too much, but like the rest of the paladins, he’s been trying his best not to add to that. 

“It’s late,” he mutters, “I was - I don’t know what I was thinking -”

“You’re fine,” Shiro tells him. “Sit down.” He taps on one of the holo-screens. “Give me a moment to just -”

“Sure,” Lance says, “You know, take your time. Do your thing. It’s not urgent,” and sits down, awkwardly. 

“It sounds pretty urgent,” Shiro replies, because of course he does, and keeps tapping quickly at the screen, mission reports transferring and shutting down swiftly. Lance can’t even get a good look at them, just for the sake of curiosity. After a few more moments, Shiro leans back and regards Lance levelly, with that uncomfortable Shiro-gaze that leaves him feeling horribly seen, right down to his bones and back. Lance tells himself he is way too old to visibly squirm under it. It’s still a close call. 

“You’re running away,” Shiro decides. 

“No! I’m _tactically retreating_ ,” Lance insists, “It’s not the same thing at all!” 

“When was the last time you spoke to Hunk?” Shiro asks, and he’s smirking a bit, the bastard. 

“Uh,” Lance flounders, “Uh. Well. Recently? Somewhat recently?” 

“Just now.” 

“Just now.” 

“And he advised you to throw yourself into work?” 

“Sort of? Maybe?” 

“He didn’t,” Shiro concludes, scanning Lance’s face and leaning back.  

“He didn’t  _ exactly _ ,” Lance argues. “He told me to think about what I wanted.” 

“And what you desperately want, right now, fresh from the end of a major relationship, is a deep space mission?” Shiro’s face is doubtful. “As in, you. Personally.” 

“You let Allura go!” Lance knows how childish that sounds. 

“Allura was already going and I can’t make Allura do or not do anything.” 

“But you can with me,” Lance says, bitterly. “Is that it?” 

Shiro sighs. 

“I’m just suggesting you think this through.” 

“I have, and I just -” Lance looks down at his own hands. “I don’t know what to do, alright? I don’t know what to do right now, but isn’t that supposed to be the thing with the Garrison? With, you know, Voltron? With all of this? That you can _tell me_ what I’m supposed to do?” 

“Do you _want_ me to tell you?” Shiro sounds astounded. “That seems mildly out of character, to be honest with you.” 

“Oh, come on,” Lance mutters, “I’m not Keith. I can take orders.” Shiro opens his mouth, but Lance cuts him off. “And before you mention, you know, Luxia, or Nyma, or any of that - holding me to a bunch of stuff I did when I was literally seventeen isn’t going to wash, Shiro. I’ve got a decent service record, haven’t I? You’re always going on about recruitment policies, right? So. Here I am. Recruit me. Send me somewhere, I don’t care. Just send me _somewhere that isn’t here._ ” 

The flow of words comes out all at once, in a gush, falling out of his mouth with the taste of blood. 

“There it is,” Shiro says softly, which is when Lance realises he’s stood up, his chair knocked over, hands flat down on Shiro’s desk, staring Shiro down. “That’s it, isn’t it?”  

There’s far too much understanding in Shiro’s eyes. Lance wants to look away, but it holds the gaze instead. They stay there, locked, for some time. 

“Somewhere that isn’t here,” Shiro echoes, slowly, finally. “I think I can do that. Any other requests?” 

For a second, Lance thinks Shiro is joking - he’s always had a deadpan way about him - but Shiro seems entirely serious, pulling up briefings on his holo-screen, chewing the inside of his cheek. He glances up at Lance, waiting.  

“Somewhere where,” Lance hesitates, but he’s already given so much away, what the hell, “Somewhere where I don’t have to be a paladin for a bit. Just, you know. A body on the ground.” 

A way to figure out who is he is, outside of it all. A tactical retreat. Shiro nods, clear-eyed, and looks back to his holo-screens. 

“Be at the loading bay at 0600 hours,” Shiro tells him. “I think I have something that could work.” 

 

*

 

Lance starts awake with a jolt, snapping out of free-falling and into living again with a shock. He gasps in counterpoint to the hum of the air-conditioning vents for a while, waiting for his breathing to settle. It does. It settles, in the end, and Lance swallows around the hot, bright, imploding feeling in his chest. He counts the beats of his own heart, fingers held against his own pulse, crooks them like he would around a trigger - _muscle memory,_ he tells himself, _muscle memory and rituals, that’s how to do it_ \- and it settles. 

When he takes a look at the clock, there’s not that much point in going back to sleep, so he hits the training circuits and the showers, trying not to think about how this is torn right out of Keith’s textbook of badly written coping mechanisms. By 0600 hours he’s more than ready. He’d been pacing in his room for the last ten minutes before leaving, trying to shake off the restless energy crackling along his limbs. 

He leaves his flight suit behind, takes the bayard - he’s not an idiot - listens to the door slide shut and lock. He thinks it right then, staring at his own door closing:  _ what am I doing?  _ The panic sears through him. 

From the other side of the base, he feels Red stir, as though from a sleep. The answer comes through firmly:  _ what you have to. Don’t take too long.  _

_ I’ll miss you too,  _ Lance thinks back, gets a grumpy feeling of agreement in return, and sets off at a jog. He rounds the corner, setting off a ricochet of salutes in his wake, and slams right into Keith. 

“Yo,” Lance manages, “Watch where you’re going!” which is when he realises they are, in fact, going the same way. 

“I was coming to get you,” Keith informs him, “Shiro amended the brief this morning,” and then before Lance can register that again, that inexplicable sweetness, Keith shrugs and adds, “I mean. It’s been a while since you’ve headed down our way. Had to make sure you weren’t going to get lost.” 

His smirk slices across his face, all teeth without teeth. Keith has always been in the best mood on the first day of a new mission, that all-familiar adrenaline starting up under his skin. Lance knows how infectious it gets, but it still hits him like a contact high. 

“Lost?” Lance says, and Keith nods, still looking delighted with himself. “Lost? Oh, _fuck you_ -” and then Lance darts off, running, making the turns with seconds to spare before he slams into the wall. 

“Beat you to the loading bay!” he calls behind him, the words being ripped out of his mouth and cast behind him by the momentum. 

Lance can hear Keith hammering behind, gaining ground rapidly, years of Blade work and honing his own, Galra-aggravated speed. And in this moment, when people scatter out of their way, it’s not out of some kind of respect, out of the idea of some kind of debt, out of the idea that heroes are rendered untouchable by mere mortals - it’s just to get the hell out of their way. It feels good. Lance laughs, and it’s half-hysterical, but it’s there. It’s  _ there.  _

The wonder of it: that no matter everything else, no matter, Lance can still laugh and mean it. The wonder of it: that he _wants_ to. 

They skid to a stop in front of the bay. The ship is one they take out for stealth work, Lance notices with pleasure.  _ Just a body on the ground _ , he thinks, _ just a son of a gun _ , and he is satisfied. He ignores the strange looks from the crew as he wheezes for breath, winded by the race. 

“Okay,” Lance says, looking up to where Keith is barely flushed, “Okay, you - you got me. Just this time. I’ll let you - I’ll let you have this one.” 

Keith doesn’t reply, so Lance looks up, raising his head from where he’s crouched, resting it on his folded arms. He notices Keith is looking at him with the strangest expression. 

“Do you want to -” Keith makes an irritated, aborted noise under his breath. “Look, I feel like - am I supposed to be asking you about, like, how you’re doing?” 

Lance resists the urge to snap back something mean, knowing the crew’s just overheard Keith. It’s out in the world anyway, Lance thinks: Allura and him are both out in the world anyway, in their separate ways. The news of it was going to have to catch up to him eventually. Keith is being less weird when Lance had anticipated, at least. Even though it’s not remotely the first time Lance and Keith have paired together on a mission since pushing the Galra back out of Earth’s atmosphere, it’s just - it’s been a while, you know? Lance and Allura work well together, and so he’d ended up on diplomatic missions more often than not: the thing with being the Blue Paladin, with being Lance, has been learning to play off being underestimated by others. The value of that, politically. But the missions with Keith - and there’s still been missions, there’s always something else to save - have tended to be Lance being pulled out of bed at jumbled, meaningless, night-time hours, blurry with exhaustion as he suits up and grabs his bayard. They’ve been going in fast and fighting dirty, leaving no trace and high-fiving Keith before slipping back into his rooms and sleeping all the next day. 

“Honestly?” Lance asks. Keith nods, serious. “Then honestly, I can’t think of anything worse.” 

Keith nods once more, and then turns and starts to head up the gangplank, which is when Lance realises: this is it. They’re going. No one is here for them to say goodbye to.  _ Just a body on the ground.   _

“You just going to stand there?” Keith’s mouth is half-concern, half-bravado. He’s trying to play pretend, but he’s never been as good at it as Lance is. 

“Nah,” Lance says, “Just giving you a head start,” and follows him onboard. 


	2. Chapter 2

“So,” Lance says, when they’re alone and the ship is cruising. There's nothing but the hum of the consoles, the flickering of lights, the endless unfolding space through the windows. “Lover boy didn’t show up to say goodbye.”

“Who?” Keith says, frowning, eyes still fixed on the reams of data unscrolling on his holo-pad. His confusion sounds genuine, so genuine Lance can’t help but gape at him for a second, fish-like. He knows it’s not a good look on him, but he can’t help it.

“You’re not serious,” Lance says, knowing Keith is, knowing Keith as he is. Keith looks up, then, his attention still clearly divided, eyebrows pulled down together. Lance wants to snatch the holo-pad out of his hands, but it’s a childish impulse and he swallows down on it.

“You’re being weird again,” Keith tells him, but his tone is relatively mild for Keith, mild enough that Lance pushes through.

“You must know people are all over you and Griffin,” Lance says, “Apparently, you’re -” His words fail him. Keith raises a single eyebrow, daring him. Lance’s throat clicks. “You’re, you know.”

“You know,” Keith echoes, clearly amused.

“Getting all up in each other’s business,” is what Lance goes for, and Keith snorts, finally putting the holo-pad down.

“Wow, Lance,” Keith says sarcastically, “I sure missed this. Nothing like you getting all up in my -”

“Don’t finish that,” Lance snaps back, and Keith’s smile widens.

“Chill,” Keith’s grinning now, outright, a little meanly. “I wasn’t inviting you.”

Lance can’t think of a single decent response to that, and Keith watches him flounder for a good five seconds or so before shrugging and picking the holo-pad up again.

“Okay, but, like,” Lance starts again, and Keith sighs, but doesn’t walk out of the room, so Lance reckons he’s good to go, “Like, really? For real?”

“I get you’re trying to distract yourself, but that doesn’t mean we’re having this conversation,” Keith is tight-lipped, now, something tense in his shoulders. He’s stopped swiping through the data - instead, he’s just looking down at the same line of code.

“Are you embarrassed?” Lance can’t help but say, shocked. I mean, if Lance was getting down and dirty with James Griffin, to the knowledge of everyone he’d ever known and then some? Yeah, Lance can see how that would be -

“For you?” Keith bites out. “Always.”

“Look, dude,” Lance says, trying to undo Keith’s scalded-cat posture. He feels more than a little responsible. “Okay, so, yeah. I’m not judging -” Nah, Lance totally is, who is he kidding - “It’s nothing to be -” Didn’t he just say he’d be embarrassed as all hell, though?

“You can stop trying now, Lance,” Keith says, and oh, thank fuck for that. Lance’s head had been about to explode from the stress of it. When he looks up, Keith’s sort of relaxing again, watching Lance with that same expression from earlier.

Lance gets the sense he’s being laughed at.

“Are you, at least, you know -”

“You know?” Keith gestures for him to go on, holo-pad forgotten again and resting at Keith’s hip. Yup, definitely being laughed at.

“Having fun?” Lance manages, and immediately winces.

“Am I _having fun_?” Keith echoes, slowly, totally deadpan. Each word is emphasised. His eyes are alight with something very close to schadenfreude. “Wow, Lance. I didn’t realise you cared so much.”

“Oh my god,” Lance says, exasperated, “Obviously I care!”

Keith hums something non-committal and goes to walk past him. Moving on instinct, Lance grabs Keith by the arm. Keith stills and looks down at him, eyes round. And Lance knows, dimly, somewhere in the back of his mind, that Keith could break Lance’s hold if he wanted, could do it like Lance’s hold was water. But he doesn’t, and the look in his face is -

“You never say how you’re doing,” Lance mutters. “You don’t say shit about it.”

“There’s not that much to say,” Keith replies.

Lance doesn’t have the strength to cough up the other words, the ones that go something like this: _haven’t you all noticed us avoiding the subject? Haven’t you noticed we’re all as bad as each other? Don’t you miss being asked how you are, and knowing how to answer? I need one of us to be happy. I need you to be happy._

“That’s -” Lance can hear his voice sounding strange, sounding outside of himself. “That’s not the same as having nothing to say.”

Now, Keith pulls his arm away.

“There’s not that much,” he repeats himself, insisting, and is out of the door before Lance can figure out where to put all the leftover words in his mouth. It’s as though Keith had sensed them too soon, like a scared horse, and bolted.

 

*

 

The second they make the rendezvous point - an outer moon of an Olkarian colony, stopping to refuel before they dock on their destination planet - Lance gets to step back and enjoy the show that is Keith getting swarmed by fans. It’s only gotten better to watch over the years, Keith rapidly surrounded by Marmora members new to their blades; moon-eyed, hungry for glory, gravitating towards Keith like he’s some young god.

The thing is, Lance thinks smugly, watching Keith openly eyeing the crowd for exit points, it’s his own damn fault. If he didn’t have to be obnoxiously _good_ at everything, he wouldn’t have half the universe following him in search of that Midas touch, hoping for some of that same alchemy.

Hoping to walk away transformed.

See, Keith has the unfortunate trait of making things better by association. Lance is man enough to admit it. He knows that he wouldn’t have spent so long levelling up in the simulator at seventeen if it wasn’t out of some wild, desperate hunger - the determination to beat Keith balling up in the pit of his stomach, almost to the point of pain. Honestly, it had been much easier when Lance could think of Keith as a born hero, and it would have been so much easier if that had ever been the case, if Keith had just gotten good by being handed it, by dint of a birthright.

Now, though, he watches Keith look over at him with a veiled kind of plea, a solid twenty Bladelings between him and the nearest way out of the loading bay. Lance smiles at him innocently, pretending not to understand Keith’s expression. It’s not every day Lance gets to see the leader of goddamn Voltron squirm. This deserves to be savoured.

“Uh, Lance, do you want me to show you to the briefing room?” Keith asks, in a flash of inspiration. He turns to his audience. “I should really show Lance to the briefing room, this is his first time here and -”

“Oh, don’t you worry about little old me,” Lance cuts across, all sweetness. “I’m sure I can find my own way there. You should, you know, catch up with me later.”

Lance clears the door and is in the corridor before the laser glare Keith is sending him actually incinerates him. Safe and out of sight, he lets himself laugh out loud, the noise of it echoing back to him off the corridor walls, so loud it’s shocking.

He hears a polite cough, and turns to apologise, wave it off, whatever - a thousand culturally specific and appropriate phrases rise in his mouth -

It’s one of the Blade, hood up so Lance can’t see their face. Something about them feels hesitant.

“Are you - sorry,” Lance says, stumbling over his words, “Wait, was I actually meant to have an escort? Did I just ditch you? Wow, I didn’t know. My bad.”

“You’re _Lance McClain_ ,” says the Blade member in reply. It’s not the reply Lance was expecting, but he had suspected something like it, just from the vibes they were giving off. That kind of tone coming out from under that kind of mask is...disconcerting. Lance throws Keith a moment of silent sympathy before they speak again. “You’re the _Blue Paladin_.”

“Yup. That’s me.”

He can’t see their eyes, or if they have them, but the phrase _eyes like saucers_ comes to mind.

“My family were on Kunith,” they tell him, and Lance suppresses a wince. Kunith was about four years back, one of the teething pains of a collapsing world order, a mining planet who had upped and rebelled against leftovers of Sendak’s lot. Kunith had been a _bloodbath._

“Did we save them?” he asks, and when they hesitate again, he just knows. They shake their head. He swallows, hard, around emotion collapsing in on itself, something bright and hard in his chest.

They both go to speak at the same time, then stop, then do it again. It’s awkward and uncomfortable and Lance hears himself saying, “No, you go first,” talking around the real words blocking his throat. I’m sorry, he thinks. _I’m sorry,_ and he’s for a second he’s back there, in a factory that had become a battlefield, surrounded by mechanical failures and disjointed parts.

“Thank you,” they say, and throw him out of the memory with a jolt.

“What?”

They tilt their hand to examine him, a little bird-like.

“Because you made it mean something.”  

“Okay,” Lance manages, grasping for words. Then he does something he learnt from Shiro, from watching Shiro stood in front of lines of survivors, dead on his feet and twice as stubborn. “Can you tell me - can you tell me about them? I want to know.”  

“You would?” They sound surprised.

“Sure,” Lance says, and it’s because they meant something long before they ever tasted the world rebellion. Because, once upon a time, Kunith had meant something to people other than destruction.

He’s going to be late for this briefing. He doesn’t care.

“Go on,” he adds, “Tell me about them.”

In the end, Lance is a healthy ten minutes late, but he still beats Keith, who is a spectacular twenty minutes late to the briefing. He rushes in, pink-cheeked and a little wild-eyed. Lance bites in the inside of his cheek, swallowing a faint smile - Keith will only see it and call it a smirk.

“Glad you could join us, paladin,” the Xanthan representative says, not without some sarcasm. Keith nods, tight-lipped, and throws himself bodily into the reserved seat next to Lance, with such force that it lets out an alarming squeak.

“You absolute fucking asshole,” he hisses at Lance, under his breath.

“It’s tough to be a god, huh?” Lance replies, but slides over his holo-pad so Keith can catch up.

Lance had reviewed the notes the morning before they departed the Garrison, has the bare bones cemented clearly enough into his memory he allows himself to zone out of the briefing. _You made it mean something. You were the best first choice I could’ve asked for. That’s not the same as having nothing to say._ Frankly, Lance has had enough of loaded conversations to last him a lifetime, thanks very much.

And the mission itself is pretty cut and dry. The Fires of Purification are back in business, because of course they are, and they’re trying to run some kind of underground recruiting gig on the backstreets of Second Daibazaal, right under the noses of the Blade. Lance grits his teeth, thinking of Kunith, thinking of the barely veiled horror in Shiro’s eyes, lurking under the surface and summoned back up by the name _Sendak_. How with every year that has passed since Keith cut him down, the shadow of it has receded, leached out of Shiro’s smile like poison lanced from a wound.

Lance has never been to Second Daibazaal, but he’s heard of it, through proximity to Keith, and then to Krolia, who now lives out there between trips to Earth and missions. The Blade finished constructing it about three Earth years ago: an artificial homeworld, for those with full or part Galra heritage, displaced by the war. Obviously, it’s a stronghold for the Blade, but it’s more than that. It’s part research facility, part conservation project, part restorative justice. Before the rise of the Empire, the Galra had had a different kind of culture, Daibazaal had been beautiful, and when it was razed, all that Zarkon had let remain was a worldview hellbent on war. Second Daibazaal was more than a shot at recovering what had been lost, it was trying to integrate and preserve the various separate histories of its people, those who had been too Galra and not Galra enough at the same time. Krolia had been a main influence in the early stages, and Lance can’t help but thinking of it as a love letter to her son: a mission to give him a homeworld.

Lance had been on a diplomatic mission with Allura shortly before the opening ceremony, and had planned to attend and all, but then he’d been stabbed over an export treaty, of all things, and had been promptly shoved into a healing pod. When he’d opened his eyes again, it had all been over. So now his second chance, he thinks, looking at Keith - to where Keith is sketching out the first lines of a game of noughts and crosses on his holo-pad. The ritual of it is so ingrained that if Lance blinked, he could be back in the Castle of Lions at seventeen, watching Allura hold court and losing miserably to Keith in between.  

Stopping the Fires from gaining a further stronghold on the planet requires them to figure out which particular member is pulling the strings on high, which further requires three things: stealth, a cover story, and a sniper. It’s the perfect kind of mission, Lance thinks. It was cut out to fit him like a paper doll’s wardrobe, snipped by someone with absurdly steady hands.

It’s not surprising. Shiro knows the silhouettes of them all by heart.

When they get back to the ship, newly refuelled and ready to go, Lance catches himself checking his own holo-pad for incoming transmissions. He doesn’t know why he checks. It’s not like Allura would message him right now, all things considered. It doesn’t stop him feeling caught out when there’s no new messages; he stops, mid-step, unsure and wrong-footed. Another ritual broken, just like that, just as easily as snapping an elastic band. It makes sense. All they have is time. Time, and all the space in the universe.

He catches Keith looking at him out of the corner of his eyes, and turns the holo-pad over, screen facing the counter.

“So,” Lance says, “I’ve never been to Second Daibazaal before. You’ve been before, right?”

Keith nods.

“Soooo,” Lance says again, drawing it out. “What’s it like?”

“Maybe if you’d been listening during the briefing, you -” Before Keith can finish, Lance kicks out at him with his foot. Keith swivels away in his chair, making Lance miss and smirking at him. Lance tries for another kick, but it doesn’t connect: Keith grabs his ankle and raises his eyebrows, still smirking. It’s the smirk of his that’s a little mean. It sets off a small, flickering light behind his eyes, like a single warm candle in a dark room. Lance tries to tug his ankle out of Keith’s grip, but Keith holds fast.

“Dude, come on,” Lance definitely does not whine. He’s trying to scoot backwards on his chair and propel himself out of range, but he’s stuck. He has the sudden, jarring feeling that Keith could snap his ankle if he wanted, just like that. He knows Keith is strong enough, he's seen Keith do worse. But Keith doesn't, his hold oddly -  

“Say please.”

“You fucking wish,” Lance mutters back and finally pulls free: whether it’s because he’s pushed his own chair back with enough force, or whether Keith’s grip relaxed fractionally for a second, he’s not sure. Whatever. “For real, though. What’s it like?”

“It’s something else,” Keith says, and his smile has turned inward, private in a way.

“We really need to work on your descriptors,” Lance huffs, and Keith pretends to ignore him. “Ugh. Fine. Don’t tell me. I’ll find out soon.”

“Exactly,” Keith says, happily. “It’ll be a surprise.”

When Lance looks over, Keith is still smiling, down at his controls, but then the actual flight crew for this mission - because they get an actual support team for this, a mixture of Blade members and Garrison treaty corps - start initiating the lift off sequence over the comms, requesting them to switch on their personal comms links. They’re mostly silent during this part - they sound off on the checks and then go back to just breathing side by side - and Lance isn’t sure if it’s the reminder they aren’t alone that’s stopped the conversation in its tracks. He wonders if that one Blade member from Kunith is on the ship. He thinks it would nice to see them again, to have a conversation about something other than the past.

Usually, his mind runs a mile a minute during silences. He’s never quite gotten the hang of them. But he’s noticed that with the rest of the original team, they’re easy. Peaceful, almost. Familiarity won through months of drifting through space side-by-side. Next to him, Keith has his eyes closed as though he’s dozing, but each of his responses to the comms are on cue and clear. After a while, he stretches in his seat, opens his eyes and stands.

“I’m going to head to the canteen,” Keith says, “You want anything?”

“If there’s something,” Lance replies, doubtfully, and Keith nods and leaves without asking for clarification, which - I mean, Keith probably has some idea of what Lance likes, so that’s that, then. The silence is louder now, and Lance tries not to think about everything crowding in from the corners of his mind. He still keeps seeing Kunith on and off, has been since that conversation, the memories of it now summoned and intruding. And then there’s Allura, and then there’s Hunk asking Lance what he wants now, and then Shiro, and all of them assuming Lance has any idea. Because Lance had gotten what he’d wanted - he’d gotten to see his family again, and to save Earth, and he’d even gotten the girl. He’d become a fighter pilot. He’d become a hero.

What kind of person gets all of that, and isn’t happy?

 _Remember,_ Lance thinks, _remember when this was everything you ever wanted,_ and he does remember. But it doesn’t change that right now, he’s got no clue about where to go next.

“Here you go,” Keith says, startling him, because Keith has mastered the art of walking like a goddamn cat. He puts down a grey plastic cup of something pink. Lance squints at it, because he’s sure that’s -

“Is this the fake coffee thing?” he asks hopefully.

This stuff is _nice_ . Hunk originally invented it after a night of Lance being so homesick in space he ended up sleeping in Hunk’s bed with him like they were kids again. Lance remembers waking to the smell of _cafe con leche_ and crying - crying even though he’d thought he’d cried himself out, crying the whole time he was drinking it, Hunk ruffling his hair. How on Earth did Keith get this? Does he have a secret hoard of it somewhere? Is he sharing it with Lance?

“Yeah, yeah, and here’s that weird protein sugar thing.” Keith drops a handful of magenta capsules down next to the cup. “Turns out Hunk got someone in charge of ship rations hooked.”

“Thank you,” Lance replies, so sincerely that Keith says, “Nah, it’s no big deal,” whilst looking at his own cup with a deeply pleased expression.

“Hey,” Lance says, “You do know that, like - you don’t have to be so nice to me. Just because of -” He pauses, struggling. “You don’t have to be nice because things aren’t so hot right now.”

The thought of pity - from Keith of all people - still stings, after all this time.

“Lance,” Keith says, calmly, “Shut the fuck up, okay? You’ve had this weird face all day and it’s making me feel weird to have to look at it.”

“Okay.” Lance takes a sip. And then another. And then another.

 

*

 

When Lance dreams, it’s as though someone outside of him slowly turns the saturation up, and up, and up. Until the colours are too real and the sound is too real, the palette and the sounds turning into something cartoonish, garish, visceral. It’s not real. He should know it’s not real. He wakes up multiple times over that first night, stuck floating in space, on the ship to Second Daibazaal where everything smells new and sterile. It’s be expected. He’s in a new place, and he’s never slept easy in unfamiliar spaces, even with his back pressed to the wall. He keeps trying, and keeps waking - gasping, overstimulated, brain clanging like a slot machine lever pulled for the billionth time - until he gives into the ringing noise in his head and gets up.

“You’re up early,” Keith murmurs, looking up at him from where he’s sat, cross-legged on the viewing deck, an abandoned serving of synthetic fruit next to him for company. He doesn’t sound remotely surprised - or rather, he’s forgotten it’s polite to pretend not to know that much about another person. He doesn’t even look up. He’d once said he could recognise them all from the sound of their footsteps, and Lance had called him a paranoid fucker for it, but he’d always secretly wondered what about the way he walked marked him out to Keith as himself.

Lance sits down next to him, flinching a little at the ice of the flooring. Keith snorts.

“Shut up,” Lance retorts, and Keith gets up to activate the heating systems, “Are you gonna finish that?”

He gestures to to the fruit...thing. Keith shakes his head, so Lance takes it. The orange syrup tastes like the colour, rather than the fruit. It’s bad, but Lance has spent long enough in space to have grown grimly adjusted to bad food. For a long time in those early days, he’d wondered at Keith never truly complaining about the meals like the rest of them, and then he’d thought back to the shack in the desert, the measly contents of the cupboards. To Keith, the food in the Castle must have been free, low effort, and most importantly free. Lance pops another wedge of wannabe apple into his mouth and thinks idly about what a brat he’d been, feeling the floor begin to warm under him. Keith sits back down.

“You don’t actually like that, do you,” Keith says, scrutinising Lance’s expression.

“Nope,” Lance says, and keeps eating.

There’s a silence, but it’s not exactly uncomfortable. Lance keeps seeing all those colours behind his eyes with each blink, but focusing on the temperature, the texture of the syrup, Keith’s breathing next to him is - grounding. The past is past tense again.

“You should listen to Allura,” Keith tells him, because Keith still has all the delicacy of a drunk person trying to sneak in through a window. “I know she keeps telling you to go talk to someone if you can’t sleep.”

“Kept,” Lance corrects but doesn’t disagree.

Here’s the thing: in Lance’s opinion, nothing that bad has ever happened to him. Not in comparison to Allura. Not in comparison to Shiro or Pidge - or - or any of them. He’s never lost his whole planet or been cloned and sent to kill them. Nobody took his arm or his brother or his parents. He’s never had to fight a whole secret society. He’s just been -

Here. That’s not so bad, right? And sure, there’s been moments. He’s been under the shadow of a Galra ship, shielding Veronica, moments like that. Moments where Lance closed his eyes and thought: either I will open them again, or I will not. Those are the only two ways left that this can go.

But he’s always opened his eyes. There’s been a - delay between those two actions, at most. That’s not so bad.

When he looks over at Keith, Keith is just staring at him, eyebrows raised.

“What?”

“Wow,” Keith says. He almost sounds disappointed. “I have to say. That was self-pitying even for you,” and stands up.

“Little harsh, dude,” Lance replies, stung despite himself, “Even for _you_.”

“Seriously though,” and now Keith looks uncomfortable, “Shouldn’t you be, like - be trying - you like talking to people, right? You talk to everyone. How different can it be?”

“Did Shiro put you up to this?” Lance knows he sounds suspicious, but with good reason.  

“No?”

“Yeah, he did.” Lance takes a vicious bite of fake grape, feels his teeth hit the metal of the spoon. Of course. It’s meant to be a damn fruit salad. Is that what the higher ups really think humankind wants to eat? Something out of nice white lady’s potluck contribution?

“Maybe? Partially?” Keith is floundering, Lance can tell: it’s in how he’s turned to stare out of the viewing bay’s windows so Lance can’t see his expression, in how his shoulders are almost up at his ears. “Look, he came to see me. To give me the updated briefing.”

“Uh huh.” Lance is out of fruit. Damn. It was useful, having something to do with his hands.

“And he may have said -”

“He may have said,” Lance prompts, joining Keith by the window.

“It’s not my fault you don’t listen to people,” Keith blurts out suddenly, which has to be the most hypocritical thing Lance has ever heard in, like, his whole life.

“Yeah, because you’re in a real rush to go talk to the Garrison about your feelings. Regular visitor to the Health division all of a sudden, are you?” Lance sounds scathing, he knows, but he’s tired and everyone keeps asking him to be fine, or to try and be fine, and it’s been, what? A day? Two days? Since his girlfriend -

Give him a fucking break.

“Are you trying to fight with me so I’ll forget what we’re talking about?” Keith asks him, which is so disgustingly perceptive Lance kind of wants to deck him.

“I’m trying to make it clear I don’t want to talk to you about it,” Lance replies. “That’s not - that’s not what we are.”

This silence, this one right now - this is uncomfortable. Nice one, Lance.

“Okay,” Keith says, eventually.

“Okay?” Lance echoes. “That’s - you’re going to just -”

He’s going with that?

“Yeah? Wait, am I not supposed to be agreeing with you? You kind of seem like you want to be agreed with right now.”

Keith looks at him, confused, his expression reminding Lance that, despite everything - despite the titles and the accolades - Keith is actually only twenty-six. It’s an age Lance used to think of as ancient, then one he thought of as impossible for them to reach. And now Keith is there, Lance finds himself abruptly, deeply angry - at how young that was, at how little that had been to hope for.  

“You aren’t supposed to agree with me just because I want you to.” Now, Lance is confused. Because - that isn’t who they are, either.  Keith just shrugs.

“Then I don’t know what you want from me,” he says, simply, like that’s a statement that makes any sense at all. Then, before Lance can say anything about how little that makes sense, Keith looks at him and nods towards the window. “Hey. Look. Not so long now.”

Lance finally, finally looks out of the window properly. They’ve swung out from behind a bunch of asteroid clusters. And in the distance, rapidly filling the whole breadth of the windows as they approach, is Second Daibazaal.

Second Daibazaal looks like the sparse lines of a Blade of Marmora base made beautiful - everything is chrome and gunmetal, highly polished like a star, shimmering with pinpricks of white and lilac light. The reflection of its suns cast an unearthly, molten kind of glow along its left side.

“Oh, wow,” Lance manages.

“Yeah,” Keith’s voice is more breath than anything. “See? Something else.”

They swing closer. Lance watches Keith watch the rising of Second Daibazaal’s twinned suns; the red light washes starkly over his face, and the expression of hope there is so blatant it’s almost unbearable. Keith stares out, either unaware of Lance’s gaze or refusing to yield to it. He has the look in his eyes of a man who had never seen the sea before - had thought of it as only a peculiar myth - only to find out that it was true, that such a thing could, in fact, exist.

Home is more than a place, but Lance has always had a place to call home: a country, a family, something bigger in the breadth and scope of its love than a single shack in the desert - than the sound of frogsong and dust settling. Lance has always looked at himself and known, inside out and back to front, where he belonged, exactly where he slotted into place in the universe: a boy from Cuba, his mother’s son. He’d known it blind, right up until he came home. He’d slipped back into his old skin like a selkie finally returning to the sea, only to learn that the salt stung his eyes, only to learn that the currents no longer spoke to him in a tongue he could recognise.

Approaching this, the second version of a home planet - an attempt to take back what was razed in favour of empire - Lance can’t help but think of Allura. He thinks of Allura painstakingly dressing in ceremonial clothes barely anybody left alive could remember the significance of. Allura talking about Altea into the night, Lance letting her, them holding each other and the words unspooling out of her - gaining traction, momentum, impossible to stop. How Lance had fallen in love with a preserved memory of place long gone before he was born, just like he’d fallen in love with a woman irrevocably changed by the loss it.

He thinks about legacies, about labours of love and the Olkari, stood in the rubble of their city, and how in their language the word for _to rebuild_ is the same word they use to say _to grow_. He thinks about ghost towns outside the Garrison that slowly, over time, learnt to be lived in again.

And then, Lance thinks about kissing Keith - about leaning over, pressing his hand to the glass of the window for balance, about dipping his head to catch Keith’s lower lip with his mouth, about tipping Keith’s chin up and going for broke. He thinks about it so vividly, the details of it so rich, that when he hears the landing request crackle through the comms and blinks back into his body, he can’t quite believe it hasn’t happened. He catches himself staring, dumbly, at the window, searching for the evidence of his own handprint like he’s cleaning up after a murder.  

What in fucking fuck was that about now? Jesus fuck, has Lance gotten so out of practice about being single that he’s ready to, what, jump the nearest warm body? He’s one of the paladins of Voltron - if it’s sex he’s after, he could walk into the nearest goddamn bar and put his bayard down on the countertop. Job fucking done. He wouldn’t even have to say anything.

“Lance,” Keith asks him, interrupting Lance’s breakdown in progress, “Are you coming or not?”

Lance tries not to visibly wince at the word choice. Unfortunate timing. Never mind. Lance knows Keith means they need to get ready to head out and do their damn jobs but -

See, that’s the thing. With Keith, Lance would have to say -

Yeah, he has to say something right about now. He’s let the silence drag on too long.

“Nah, I’ll -” He makes an ineffectual hand gesture. “I’ll - I’m just gonna - I’ll follow you in a sec, yeah?”

Look, it’s got to just be -  he’s not used to being alone. He’s been part of a set for years. It’s entirely natural. Possibly.

“Right,” Keith doesn’t sound remotely convinced of anything, first and foremost Lance’s sanity. “If you’re going to cry it out in private, remember to turn the comms link off.”

Oh, Christ. Keith thinks Lance is going to pieces over his literal break up. Which isn’t entirely incorrect. Guilt is already a grinning little demon on his shoulder, just waiting for three in the morning to arrive.

Lance watches Keith leave, listens to the sound of his footsteps recede, and realises - with a jolt - that yeah, they’re familiar. The sound of them is familiar. He knows Keith by sound alone.

He knows the rest of the crew will be waiting. He knows he can claim special treatment anyway and delay the mission start for a while, even though he’s said he doesn’t want it. He knows Keith might end up coming back to yell at him, the only person on the ship who’ll feel able to and the only person that he doesn’t want to see.

He checks again. No new messages from Allura. 

He still stays there - as though trapped, bathed in purple light - for some time.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for a panic attack where the person experiencing it (Lance) doesn't realise that's what it is and doesn't name it as such. If you want to skip, go from _And that’s the problem here_ to _It helps._

Lance dresses for war, the same way he’s done since he was seventeen - the same way he’s done since he was a fresh cadet. The uniforms have morphed out of orange into blue - into khaki and gold and brutal silhouettes on Earth, into Altean formal dress, flower-petal-thin. The uniforms have changed over the years, but they’re all a way to go to war, to become the kind of person that can go to war.

This outfit is grey and indigo. It feels like some kind of magic, silvery against his skin, like a childhood story about fairy chainmail - and he can’t even send a selfie to Hunk, which is the real tragedy here. There’s an unnerving moment after he puts it on where it warps to his skin - shifting to a more comfortable temperature, picking up on his heart-rate, measuring bio-rhythms - before it settles and he can breathe again. _Selkie skin,_ Lance thinks irrationally, hand drifting over the function panel embedded in the right wrist of the suit. In the reflection of the bathroom mirror, Lance thinks he looks tired - which, yeah, no shit, and so he rolls his eyes and goes to find Keith. Because more importantly, there is no place to hide his bayard.

“Where am I supposed to put this exactly?” Lance asks, meeting Keith at the mouth of the ship’s entrance, which is definitely the only mouth of anything that he’s considering. He waves his bayard in the air for emphasis, the blue and white of it neon-obvious. Keith is in his usual Blade outfit, his hood down, still singular in a sea of Blade members, everyone rushing around in the controlled pre-landing chaos. For a moment, he just blinks at Lance.

“Hey,” he finally says.

“Yes, hello,” Lance lets his impatience bleed into his voice. “Are you even listening? We have a problem. A giant, bayard-shaped problem.”

“Oh. Right. Yeah, that’s gonna be -” Keith glances around them, the movement a little helpless. “I don’t know, can’t you just? Clip it somewhere?”

“Where?” Lance replies. He turns around, gesturing down at himself. “Go on. Tell me where. Where are my options for shoving the damn thing -”

“I have some suggestions.” Keith’s grinning at him.

“You’re hilarious.”

They collar a Garrison supply chief, and her solution is the absolute worst, but it’s for the mission. That’s what Lance tells himself grimly, as he buckles on a goddamn utility belt, Keith standing watching him with raised eyebrows. Lance just knows he’s replaying every single insult and joke Lance ever made at the expense of that stupid belt Keith used to wear. He just knows.

“Not a word,” Lance mutters at him, struggling with adjusting it. “Not a single word.”

“Wasn’t gonna,” Keith’s voice is all smugness, and then he steps into Lance’s space, batting Lance’s hands away from where he’s fighting with the strap on the buckle.

“What are you -” Lance’s mind goes blank with surprise, staring at Keith as though swinging from a hook. Keith looks down at him, in a way that’s - just way too close - so Lance drops his hands back down by his sides, deer-in-headlights-style. “Yeah, sure. Okay, then,” he hears himself saying, without really knowing what he’s agreeing to.

 _Caught,_ Lance thinks a little desperately, as Keith fixes the belt for him. The word he’s looking for is _caught._ Keith yanks on the strap - hard, hard enough that Lance sways with the moment, leans into it without buckling. Then he tucks two fingers between the strap and the suit, and pulls, testing. His head is tilted, eyes down, totally absorbed in the task. Lance holds himself very still, tries to think of very little at all, and wonders how it is that he can feel his own heartbeat in his abdomen.

When he breathes, his entire mouth floods with a smell that he realises must be Keith’s - that must be Keith.

“Too tight?” Keith asks. Lance pauses too long to reply. It has Keith’s eyes snapping back up, eyebrows segueing into a frown.

“No,” Lance says, “No, nah, it’s good, we’re - I’m good,” and smiles. Keith looks unconvinced, but he shrugs and steps back.

“Alright then,” he says, “Let’s go,” so Lance activates the half-mask and follows Keith onto Second Daibazaal.

 

*

 

Keith was right. Second Daibazaal is _something else._ Lance’s first reaction is a gasp that’s badly stifled and has Keith’s eyes darting to him, his mouth turning up at the corners.

“I know,” Keith murmurs, and it’s like he meant it to sound smug  - but it’s just proud instead. Everything is silver and lilac and streamlined, and Lance quickly realises the clothes he’s been given mimic those of a general attendant, like a botany or library assistant. He keeps the half-mask up all the way through the tour of the public areas, and most people’s eyes slide over him, too occupied with their own lives.

There’s a Night Market, apparently - during the day it’s all empty market stalls, silver tarps unfurling like sails over abandoned ships. The whole effect is ghostly and otherworldly - which is a stupid thing to say, really, of course it is. It is another world. At the centre of the planet is a huge circular botany preserve, the glass of its ceilings and walls treated with silver like mirrored sunglasses. In the reflection of the glass, he can see the swirl of the clouds - menacing, bruise-like, on the other side of a protective artificial atmospheric barrier, looking for all the world like an Impressionist painter’s idea of how space ought to look. Lance is given a small cabin in the High Council’s main building, on the floor reserved for delegates, and it directly overlooks the botany preserve. Keith finds Lance staring out at it when he comes to fetch him for dinner. He can feel Keith’s gaze drop to the holo-pad abandoned on a low table, face down, and grits his teeth.

“Nice view,” Lance says by way of distraction, “Shame we didn’t get a chance to check it out on the ground.”

“When we’re done with the mission, we’ll go,” Keith promises him. "When I can show you around properly."

Lance turns the idea over in his head, surprised at the offer.

It’s not that strange, all things considered. They used to do that kind of thing all the time, back before the fall of Earth, before its resurrection, when they had all lived in each other’s pockets. It was easier, then, to do that kind of thing: they were there already, and they were always there in each other’s space. Nowadays, it would need planning, and forethought, and the missions they’ve taken these last two years haven’t really had the time for it, not when they were calculated so sparingly. But something in the weight in Keith’s eyes gives Lance pause. It feels oddly intimate, as far as offers go. It makes Lance wonder if Keith had gotten into Lance’s head, if he could see what Lance was thinking about earlier on the ship.

Now that Lance thinks about it, this trip so far might be the most time Keith and him have spent alone together in a good while.

“Sure,” he decides, “Why not? Can hardly turn down a free tour from the Blade’s golden boy,” and Keith rolls his eyes and mutters something about Lance needing to hurry up.

Lance is just calling it like he sees it, though. Second Daibazaal is beautiful. Second Daibazaal is beautiful, startling, unexpected - and Lance can’t help but think that Krolia did exactly what she set out to do, in decorating a world to fit her only son. Mission success. The implications of that thought - what that thought reminds him of - sets his teeth on edge.

Here’s the thing, when it comes down to it: Lance knows himself, or knows himself enough, the same way he knows to look like Keith does is just another form of diplomatic currency. Until it’s not just that. Until it can’t be just that. And either way, Second Daibazaal adore Keith. He’s sat through a day of the evidence. Of Keith being greeted ever warmer by every technician, attendant, transport crew; of Keith being smiled at by every passer-by. He can’t possibly know them all, but they all know him: as the leader of Voltron, the Black Paladin, a Blade member. As Krolia’s son. One of theirs. One of their own. Lance had kept looking at the quietly overwhelmed look on Keith’s face in between all these greetings. It had made something twinge in his chest, so he’d started asking questions instead.

They’re met at the elevators by one of the High Council members. There’s something about his face Lance doesn’t like, but he’s learnt better than to say or even think that too loudly around species he doesn’t know the provenance of. There was that one time with that one mind-reading species and it had been a whole thing. Not only had it nearly cost them an alliance, but Allura had been pissed, and Lance had been pissed back, and they’d argued for days. When the member introduces himself as Ennor Zelxoin, Minister of Trade for Second Daibazaal, of mixed Novosauran-Galran heritage - blinking beautiful, milky liquid eyes at them both - Lance decides that was a good call. He knows nothing about Novosaurans.

“It’s always a pleasure to meet another Paladin of Voltron,” he says smoothly - he knows who Lance is, because he’s High Council and they’d invited him - and something in Lance’s gut still isn’t a fan, despite knowing that. _Liar,_ his brain thinks, _Liar._ He’s sure of it, but tries to think it quietly, and takes one of Ennor’s hands in greeting.

Maybe it’s just the reminder people know who he is, despite all his attempts and pretensions towards passing by unnoticed. Maybe that’s what he doesn’t like. Maybe.

The meal itself is quiet; the journey there isn’t. Second Daibazaal’s atmosphere is artificial, which makes sense, but it also means that in order to properly showcase the skyline at sunset or something like that, they’re going to be eating outside. Which means passing from one air-controlled, oxygenated environment into another. Which means deactivating an airlock.

And that’s the problem here. See, Lance isn’t a fan of airlocks. Funny how being locked on the wrong side of one slowly opening can do that to you, huh? It’s - it’s the stupidest thing, really. It’s the smallest thing, of all the millions of things they’ve faced. It’s not even worth mentioning, because how is he going to avoid it? How is going to explain why he wants to avoid it? _Hey, uh, excuse me, so, yeah, I have this thing where if I hear the sound of an airlock being deactivated, I’m just going to panic for a bit, like, twenty seconds? Thirty seconds? Half an hour, max? It’s fine, I just space out, you won’t even notice, but just in case you do and think I’m really weird, guess what! Surprise! I am!_ Yeah, he doesn’t feel like that’s going to cut it. So it’s fine. It’ll be fine. It’s always been fine before, because the noise passes and the feeling passes and then he can go back to how it was before he heard the noise and got reminded. And it’s fine.

But then the noise starts and it’s not fine anymore. It is very abruptly very much not fine. It’s not been this bad in a while. Maybe it’s the sleeping badly the last week. Maybe it’s all the other stress. Who knows? Lance does the thing Allura taught him how to do, where he breathes in and out and tells himself it’s going to pass, and that there’s years between him and the boy who nearly got suffocated out in space. But he’s there again, all the same feelings rising up - of being helpless, of being powerless, and what’s the point of being chosen to save the world if he can’t save himself? The walls fluctuate between every blink and he can feel the oily eyes of the Minister for Trade quizzically sizing him up and if he could move he could just turn on his heel and run but he’s frozen, if he could just -

Why can’t they just _turn the fucking noise off?_

Then, he feels Keith grab onto his wrist, hard, hard enough that Lance registers the pressure, hard enough to be grounding. It’s something to focus on and Lance throws his whole mind into it, into focusing on the distinct feeling of Keith holding his wrist, onto the sensation of the suit he’s wearing - which must be choreographing his heart rate and how it’s skyrocketing, and that’s embarrassing but Lance can’t think of that right now, he really can’t. He concentrates on his own pulse, on breathing, and on Keith’s presence, solid and irrefutable, his hold on Lance silent and unshakable.

It helps. The moment passes, and they pass through it unharmed. They go to dinner. The sunset is spectacular, bathing them all in indigos and scarlets. He’s not sure what his face is doing because he can’t really feel his face, and Keith doesn’t let go of his wrist.

 

*

 

“I’m really looking forward to working with you all,” Lance remembers saying at some point during that first dinner - eager to hit the ground running, eager to have Keith stop looking at him like he’s about to self-immolate on the spot and Ennor to stop looking at him like he’s a specimen under glass. “We’re here to help,”  he remembers saying because that’s the kind of thing he’s learnt people what him to say, that and: “Where do you want us to start?”

Where they want them to start is with very little at all, actually. Second Daibazaal’s High Council have decided, in all their wisdom et cetera, that it’s better to send out Blade foot-soldiers at first. They want to get the information that will allow them to establish some idea of the recruiting network, of its major players. They want to save Keith and Lance for when they have some concrete idea of a showdown, bring them out of the arsenal then.

So, never mind hitting the ground running: they’re grounded.

“We’re grounded,” Lance tells Keith, after the first week and a half of doing sweet fuck all. “You do know that, right? They’ve _grounded_ us.”

Keith just rolls his eyes and takes another bite of his regulation fruit salad.

“I can’t believe Krolia has grounding privileges,” Lance continues, punctuating this by waving his own spoon in the air. “Over me, that is. I get it for you, dude, she has like, years to make up for - and let’s be real, you totally deserved it during puberty like whoa but I’ve never been grounded in my whole life -”

“Now that’s a lie if I ever heard one.”

“Not a lie,” Lance argues. “Hyperbole. Come on, aren’t you bored out of your skull too? You know what, forget it. At least you get to leave the ship without masking up. I hate trying to breathe in those things.”

“People expect me to be here,” Keith reminds him, in a voice that’s all Shiro in its faux-reasonableness. “If you’re here with me, it becomes a thing. A Paladin thing. That’s gonna draw a lot of heat for us, and we’re meant to be -”

“Yeah, on the down-low, I got the memo,” Lance bitches, “But it’s not my fault the novelty’s worn off. By the way, is it just me who finds Ennor creepy as all hell, or is it -”

“He’s weird,” Keith agrees, so immediately Lance feels reassured. “Mom thinks he’s weird.”

“Huh,” Lance says, and dedicates twenty seconds to that thought before returning to being bored, and then moves on to reminding Keith he’s bored.  

“Have you considered yoga?” Keith says, with such deadpan delivery Lance looks up in surprise. “I’ve heard it can solve all your problems. All of them.”

“Really,” Lance replies, equally deadpan.

“Sure,” Keith says. “My friend, right, he lost his arm. Took up yoga. Totally got a new one.”

Lance laughs. Keith raises his eyebrows, smirking, satisfied.

“Yeah,” Lance replies. “That definitely sounds like cause and effect, right there.”

“Definitely. You should get on that. Didn’t you used to get on that?”  

“Talking big for someone who’s never heard of a single pose,” replies Lance - who had, yes, been so stressed out and bored at one point during that long trek across the universe in their Lions that Romelle and him really had tried out yoga - what little Lance could remember from his mom’s instructional videos. Romelle had gotten her leg stuck and Lance had laughed too hard to help her, so Keith had sent Allura over with Kosmo and then she’d started laughing too and Lance and her had just sat there, collapsed, crying over something that wasn’t even that funny, their weight on each other -

It’s a good memory. He can’t believe Keith remembers that. For a moment, Keith's face is kind of sad. Lance reckons it's the Kosmo thing. Keith and that wolf are attached at the hip, but for these kind of missions, Keith usually and begrudingly passes him off to Shiro, who always acts like Keith has just given him his wedding china and not a teleporting space wolf to foster for a few weeks. Lance nudges Keith with his foot and he snaps out of it. 

"Hey. I was saying, you talk big for someone who -"  

“Child’s pose,” Keith counters. “Downward dog.”

“Yeah, no. That’s basic. You’re basic, dude.”

“Say that to my face,” Keith says, “Who died and made you an authority?”

“Your good taste,” Lance replies, and it’s all downhill from there: Krolia walks in on them a solid forty-five minutes later, trying to out-maneuver each other. Lance has one leg behind his head, whilst Keith is walking around on his hands. He’s already crashed into the console stand, like, twice.  

“Keith,” she says, in a voice that has Keith dropping back down onto his feet, spine ramrod-straight in three seconds flat. Lance removes his leg at a slightly more languid pace, but only slightly. He’s genetically engineered to respond to Mom Voice. “Do I want to ask?”

“Uh, I mean,” Keith replies. “Do you want to know?”

“I think I can live with some things staying a mystery,” she says, casting a look in Lance’s direction, and Lance finds himself also stood, matching Keith in posture, without even realising it’s happened. _Damn._ “We think we have eyes on one of the higher-ups. Last seen boarding a transport here. I see you’re very busy right about now -”

Oh my God, she’s doing the thing. She’s doing the Keith thing where she’s laughing with her eyes.

“But there’s going to be a briefing in five, and I think you’re going to want to be there.”

“Oh my god, _nice_ ,” Lance hears himself saying, and looks up to see Keith and Krolia both looking at him, wide-eyed with surprise. He coughs. “I mean, yes, ma’am. That sure sounds important and we’ll be right along now.”

Oh, and now they’re both doing it. Great. Fabulous. Delightful. Gotta love that family resemblance.

 

*

 

Lance fully makes it out of the meeting room before doing anything less than composed. He’s not an idiot. Keith is used to him, so he merely raises an eyebrow at Lance victory-dancing down the corridor.

A mission. Finally. Fucking finally. Lance is going to get to do something other than sitting cooped up with Keith and his own thoughts and then Keith again -

“Wow, you really were bored,” Keith says, biting back a smile, and Lance hip-checks him, holds his hand out for a high five. Keith hesitates for a second before bringing his own hand down, but it’s visible progress - back at seventeen, Keith would’ve just stared at Lance like he was holding out something rotten.

Three days later, Lance finally finds himself on a promised mission, scouting from the rooftop of one of the buildings in the Night Market, bayard transformed and resting snugly against his shoulder. It’s familiar, an extension of his body, but the Blade planted some kind of cloaking device on it, something they’d been perfecting ever since Lance showed up on Second Daibazaal. It’s gunmetal gray, now, none of the distinctive Paladin markings in sight. Lance keeps getting disconcerted by the alien colour when he glimpses it out of the corner of his eyes. It makes his hands look like they aren’t his.

Keith is semi-dozing, and Lance is allowing it, because it’s been six hours of nothing and more nothing, but his eyelids have started to droop dangerously over the last ten minutes. Which means it’s wakey-wakey time for them both.

“You get any messages from home yet?”  Lance asks, and watches Keith blink out of his half-sleep.

“Home?” Keith says, sounding confused, and Lance realises with a jolt that home might not be the same place for them anymore. How could it be? Keith has a whole custom-built planet now. Surely that’s gotta beat the desert.

Below them, the crowd sways and moves.

“Earth,” he clarifies, keeping his eye focused through the sniper sight, tracking heat signatures up and down the block as they linger over each other.

“Couple from Shiro,” Keith says, “He says hi. It’s mostly videos of Kosmo so I don’t miss out on anything.” This is so absurdly cute that Lance’s brain skips a beat and he zones back in to hear Keith asking, “What about you?”

“Pidge keeps sending me, like, a billion memes,” Lance replies, because he knows it’ll make Keith laugh. “It’s memes o’clock up in my inbox, all day, every day.”  

Keith laughs on cue, shakes his hair out of his eyes.

“Nothing from Allura?” Lance asks, asks so carefully he can just feel the look Keith’s sending him, keeps his own gaze locked onto doing his damn job.

“No,” Keith says softly. “Nothing from her.”

“Oh, snap,” Lance tries to sound light, “We match!” and doesn’t look Keith’s way.

“Do you want there to be?”

“Honestly?” Lance shrugs. “I don’t fucking know. It doesn’t feel great, but -”

“But?”

“Maybe I should be feeling worse than I am? I don't know. Ugh, enough about me. A certain captain’s not hitting you up?”  

“No? Why?”  

“Yeah,  I don’t get it. That’s what I don’t get about it.”

“You don’t need to get it.”

“Does he get you flowers?”

“Does he -” Keith takes one look at Lance’s shit-eating grin, and scowls. “Shut up,” he adds, turning to glare back out of the window. Lance watches Keith’s eyes scanning back and forth across the street - how the lights from outside are reflected in his eyes, illumination making the colour of them look ever darker, even easier to collapse in.

“No.” The silence has stretched on so long, Lance had gone way past expecting an answer and back into his own head.

“Okay,” Lance says, after a pause, trying to figure this one out. “So, like, you buy the flowers then? Who’s buying the flowers?”

“No one’s buying anyone flowers, Lance,” Keith’s voice is rough with tiredness, and also resigned. “Why are we talking about this again?”

“Because we sure as hell can’t talk about me,” Lance informs him. “Not unless you want me to, I don’t know, cry on you and miss the target ‘cause my eyes are, like, all swollen.” 

“Specific,” Keith murmurs.

“Honest,” Lance replies.

“Sounds like you’re coping just great over there,” Keith points out.

“Nice try,” Lance deflects. “It’s your turn, my dude.” Keith sighs. “Come on, you know your secrets aren’t going anywhere.”

“You know you wouldn’t miss,” Keith retorts, but he’s biting his lip. He’s wavering. Lance nudges him with his shoulder, and it’s like tipping a glass full of water; Keith shrugs and says, “It’s not like there’s anything to - it’s not like that.”

“Like what?”

“That.”

“Yeah, that made just as much sense the second time.” Lance makes a point of scanning the crowds underneath them and not Keith’s expression.

“We’re just -”

“Just -” Lance waits, but Keith has gone quiet again. “Just what? ‘Cause, like, no offence, Keith, but I thought you fucking hated country music, and homeboy over there looks like he was born in a barn.”

“He’s from Connecticut,” Keith informs him, but he sounds like he’s smiling.

“Damn,” Lance mutters. “That explains a lot.” Another pause. The fact Keith knows that - that Keith remembers that - Lance can’t help but think, very suddenly, of Keith lying there in Griffin’s perfectly regulation bed, hair a mess, his whole body a disruption, and -

Talking.

And it seems easy.

“So, you talk then?” Lance says, a strange note in his voice, one that has Keith looking up at him, startled. The fine bird-bones of his face are all hollows in the shadows before Keith drops his gaze down again.  

“Not really.”

“Not really?”

“Yeah, that’s what I said. It’s not like that.”

“Doesn’t sound like much of anything,” Lance says, and it’s cruel of him, he knows it even as it falls out of his mouth, even as he knows he can’t stop it. Keith takes it without flinching, looks up at him, and Lance can see in the twist of Keith’s mouth that he’s asked for whatever’s coming next.

But then, Keith pauses. Shrugs. Says, “It’s what it is,” which damn, if that isn’t the same thing Kinkade had said to Lance back at the Garrison. “It’s better than, I don’t know -”

“Better than?”

“It’s better,” Keith says, like he’s convincing himself, then, “It’s like being normal,” and Lance hears himself saying _anywhere but here_ , hears himself begging to be rendered invisible. _Just a body on the ground._ He swallows, uncomfortable.

“He’s not a bad person,” Lance allows, even though it’s grudging, so grudging it scratches up his throat, “It’s just I always figured, with - I mean - Ryan - Kinkade’s right there, isn’t he? And everyone was always saying -”

He snaps his mouth shut, concerned he’s gone too far - but when he chances a look over at Keith, Keith’s just raising an eyebrow at him.

“The word you’re looking for is fraternisation,” Keith tells him, quietly.

“Oh,” Lance says, “Oh, shit. Wow. Yeah. Fuck.”

Because that’s it, that has to be it: James Griffin is Ryan Kinkade’s commanding officer. James fucking Griffin, with the military chain of command as his own personal Bible. It’s more than that, of course: it’s the sort of thing that’d end up haunting you, alone in your bunk, 0300 hours on the clock and hiding from yourself. If there’s court-martials hovering behind every touch, if there’s backlash and promotions and what it means to hold power on the line -

If someone can’t say no to you, how can you ever trust them when they say yes? Lance is dazzled by the horror of it, shocked at being made heartsick for James Griffin.

“Fuck,” Lance says, once more with feeling.

“Good to see you can still say that,” Keith says, “In the right circumstances, of course.”

“Fuck _you_ ,” Lance amends. Keith snickers, and they lapse into silence for a few moments.

“It’s not weird.” Keith sounds defensive. “You keep making it sound weird.”

"I guess? I don't understand how you keep the feelings out.”

  
"It's not about keeping anything out," Keith replies, "Jesus, you make it sound contagious."

"Isn't it?" Lance asks.

To him, that's always been part of it, reciprocity a feedback loop. Call him a hopeless romantic, but there it is. Lance wants to say he’s lost count of all the girls he’s cried over, the sheer urge to kiss them manifesting in his chest as some kind of higher feeling. But he’d be lying. He remembers everyone he’s ever wanted long enough to call it a crush - all of the girls, all of the boys, all of everyone in between. It’s just it’s - easier, isn’t it, to watch what comes out of your own mouth, pronouns change the whole story you’re telling, and it wasn’t a story Lance wanted the whole of coming out. Coming out, heh. That’s not a bad -

“I don’t think you even have to like the person,” Keith tells him calmly, interrupting Lance’s interior monologue. “Not all the time. You just have to like how they make you feel right then.”  

“That’s -” Lance pauses, because he was about to say _that’s kind of sad,_ and he’s not sure whether he actually wants to say that to Keith’s face. So he swallows it, only with the unspooling silence he’s been staring at Keith far too long for someone who -

For him.

“Something you want to say?” Keith asks him, and Lance shrugs. His eyes drop to Keith’s mouth, and he drags his gaze away, but it’s like pulling apart two magnets, and when he looks back, Keith is still there.

Lance once read that the human body replaces itself, over and over, during the course of the average lifetime. Lance does not live in the same body he did when he first left Earth, and he does not live in the same body he did when he first came back. He is something else now. What a thing it was, to live in between like that, like being caught between tides.

He finds himself drawn in towards Keith. He doesn’t let go of his bayard, he isn’t stupid, but he hears the faint click of it meeting the floor, feels his grip sliding off and away from the trigger.

And here’s the thing: Lance has felt helpless before. He’s felt powerless, his back up against the wall before, with nowhere to go, no way out but through. He’s been scared before, so bad it’s taken him out of his body - cutting the part of him that was distinct, and separate, and sometimes called a soul clean out of his own skin. And Keith’s done that to him before, too: Keith’s gaze sweeping over him in the simulator, Keith being ripped out of his mind and through a wormhole, leaving an absence like a hole in the head. Keith, missing on an alien planet for hours, Lance staring out at the silence and stillness of the atmosphere. Keith, sounding off, his voice an ache, and Lance wondering if this was how it ended. He had lived with the idea that Keith - who had always held all the allure of the final moments of a dying star - would implode and take out a slice of the universe with him, not that he would simply be snuffed out.

Right now, Keith is none of those things. He’s warm, and close, and alive. One of his teeth is little crooked, overlapping onto its neighbour, overreaching. He’s safe, and right here, and more reachable than ever. Lance has never been more frightened by him.  

What a strange sort of man a raging, rootless boy had turned into. The scar tissue on Keith’s cheek, when Lance reaches out and runs a fingertip along the spread of it, is stretched smooth. He can feel Keith’s breath, warm against his own hand.

Keith raises one eyebrow, face wary. But he hasn’t moved away. He hasn’t moved away.

 _This is_ \- Lance thinks faintly. _This is really fucking stupid of me._

He kisses Keith.

For a split, awful second, Keith just - doesn’t move, and it has Lance backtracking like whoa, has him moving to reel away, mind a blare of panic like comms static - _what is he even doing_ -

But then Keith must sense that, the shift as Lance goes to move back, because one of Keith’s hands shoots out and clasps the back of Lance’s neck, palm hot against his bare nape, skin against skin, as Keith pushes into his space. And Keith kisses him back.  

And this is a bad idea. This is the king of bad ideas. Lance has maybe five people in this world who really get him, who are really on the level, who have seen the things he has, been the same places he has - people who have walked a thousand miles in his shoes and then some, and he’s done the same in theirs. He’s already done this with Allura, and now it’s over, and she isn’t even messaging him anymore, so he’s one down as it is. Can he really risk Keith? Keith, who apparently doesn’t even need to like somebody? The numbers don’t add up. None of this is weighted in Lance’s favour.  

But here’s the counter-argument: Keith’s mouth. His hand on Lance’s neck like a brand. How close he is already to being between Lance’s legs. How when they first got here, Keith’s hand taut around his wrist had given Lance something to hold onto. How Keith makes this noise into Lance’s mouth, it spikes right through Lance, the knowledge that he did that, he did that and to Keith. How good it is to feel wanted, how it soothes some stung, slow-aching pride that Lance hasn’t been wanting to even acknowledge. When Keith licks into Lance’s mouth, Lance gasps, and it’s like the gasp when he first saw Second Daibazaal: that same kind of _wow, holy shit, I thought it was going to be something else but this is -_

Lance thinks they’ve been kissing for a while, the thought half-formed and vague - but when Keith pulls back to catch his breath, Lance is already following him. 

“Hey, no,” Lance hears himself saying, “Don’t go -”

Before he can fully appreciate how pathetic that must sound, there’s a noise - something metallic and strange, it’s out of place and it takes Lance too many precious seconds to recognise the danger of an out of place noise -

They break apart just in time to witness the entryway buckling, the noise the scrape of crushed metal as the sealed doors are forced open -

Lance grabs for his bayard, but it looks so unfamiliar it takes him another few seconds to locate the trigger again, the sight of the new colours throwing off his muscle memory. In the corner of his vision, he can see Keith scrambling to his feet as well, only he’s a little slower than usual as well. Sentries pour into the cramped space, pressing them back against the windows, no space to raise a weapon. Some of them seem to be actual troops in sentry uniforms - Lance can see the whites of their eyes through the holes in their masks. Shit. Fuck. Shitting fuck.

“Well, well, well,” says a disturbingly familiar voice, “What have we here?”

It’s so textbook villain that Lance would laugh - but he’s too busy catching up - putting a name to the face that steps through the door, pulling back the grey and indigo hood of the Second Daibazaal’s High Council.

Of course, it’s Ennor - as in Ennor Zelxoin, the half-Novasauran Minister for Trade here on Second Daibazaal - because of course it is. Lance has been living in science fiction long enough; he should have seen this one coming. Of course there had to be an inside guy, and who better than the person in charge of all of the imports and exports on the planet - the one responsible for tracking cargo? Lance had been a cargo pilot, once. He knows all too well that cargo can mean all kinds of things: medicine, food, weapons. He knows - should’ve known - it can also mean people. Recruits. The Fires of Purification.

 _Remember where you came from,_ the saying goes: _one day, you might have to go back there._ If only he’d remembered the kind of person he’d been at the Garrison - the kind of person he’d been outside of his mother’s son -

“Wow,” Lance says, “I wish I could say it was nice to see you again, too, but, you know. It’s not.”

“Lance,” Keith’s voice is steely, and it translates to: _shut up._ The glare he sends Lance is phenomenal. His mouth is still red from -

So Lance shuts up.

“It’s a shame,” Ennor says, his eyes resting on Lance for a hot second and then moving on, dismissing him. “I don’t enjoy this kind of thing when it comes to one of our own.”

Keith, Lance realises. He’s talking to Keith, who is stood, his mouth a furious twist now. He looks one step away from snarling. Ennor starts going into his villain monologue right on cue, and it’s aimed right at Keith - Keith, who’s half-Galran and therefore worth Ennor’s time. See? There’s power in being underestimated. It gives Lance some time as he tries to figure out how much they’ve got in terms of maneuverability - which is basically nada. He looks behind him for a split-second. The purple light of Second Daibazaal’s sky spills onto the floor, and it’s so stupid that they’re trapped up against glass, like they’re on display, glass that’s too thick to smash through -  

Wait. Lance closes his eyes, slides his hand down to his bayard, and twists his arm behind his back. Finger on the trigger. He can’t help but remember the Garrison all over again, all of a sudden: their firearms instructor, stood over Lance as a recruit, absolutely rinsing him for trying to show off:

_This isn’t a game. I don’t care if you think the safety is on. Don’t ever point at something you’re not prepared to shoot. Don’t ever shoot at something you aren’t prepared to kill. When you’re holding a gun, you have to mean it. You have to know the gun will mean it, even if you didn’t._

“Keith,” Lance says, cutting across the monologue,  “Count of three.”

 _One:_ Lance’s finger is already on the trigger, but he braces his feet, holds his weight ready - he tries not to think too hard about anything, not about Keith or how high up they are or how -

 _Two:_ because it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. He has to mean it.

 _Three:_ Lance shoots - shoots, plural, shooting through the glass behind him, his arm still twisted behind his back, muzzle of the gun firmly pressed against the glass and he prays for no ricochet -

The glass shatters, the laser cutting through it. Lance throws himself backwards. He reaches out, trying to snag Keith - by the back of his collar, his suit, something, but he’s misjudged it and his fingers close around air. And then -

He’s falling. He feels all the sensors on his suit blare into panic at the same time, registering the shift in temperature, the rush of the wind, the elevation of his heartbeat -

He waits for the anti-gravity to kick in. The sensors must be about to kickstart that soon enough, right?  

Keith hasn’t followed him out. That’s - not good. He checks through his sniperscope, and Keith’s heat signature isn’t by the shot-out glass anymore, which means he’s - he’s moved? Been moved? Lance waits, counts to three again, and then aims close by to where Keith last was, hoping Keith is following, hoping Keith isn’t -

What if Keith doesn’t get what Lance was saying? What if Keith doesn’t get out of the way? What if -

He can’t do it. He can’t risk it, he can’t - his aim wavers, though whether it’s with the wind or nerves or both, Lance isn’t sure, but this isn’t a game anymore, and what if he calls it wrong -

His comms link crackles back into life, out here in the atmosphere.

“Lance,” he hears Keith saying. The background noise is chaos, enough that it’s screwing with the reception, or maybe that’s just the wind and - yeah, Lance didn’t think this one through, what was he even - “Lance. Left side. Two o’clock. Take the shot.”

Lance aims at the window again, and - that’s him, right? He pinpoints a spot close to maybe-Keith. The heat signatures are patchy, but that one’s got to be -

“Do it _now_.”

He holds his breath and takes the shot. It takes five tries to shatter the glass at this distance, but he watches it give, watches the spray of it outwards, transparent and somehow arterial. Watches a figure in black jump out. The whole thing’s taken about ten seconds, but it feels like years: when Lance finally takes a breath, seeing Keith take the leap, all the sound and noise rushes back in at once. He breathes in ozone.

“That wasn’t the count of three,” Keith tells him, and Lance barks out a laugh.

“Sorry,” he manages. Tears prick at his eyes from the wind now, blurring his vision. “I was trying to get us both out together.”

The anti-gravity thing still hasn’t happened. That’s not ideal. Lance is pretty sure they told him this suit had that capability. It’s not the kind of thing you forget.

“It’s fine, it’s okay. Did you -” Keith’s voice is urgent now. “Lance, did you activate the anti-gravity?”

“The - activate it?”

“The anti-gravity? It’s a - Lance, you have to press it, it’s on the function panel at your wrist, there’s an activation sequen--” Keith’s voice blurs into static. Lance starts wildly hitting buttons, not sure of the right order. He hasn’t dared look down yet, because it’ll be like when he was learning to drive: _objects in the mirror may be closer than they appear._ He doesn’t want to see how close or not anything is just yet. The rush in his ears is beginning to sound like the noise after an airlock releases and it’s closing his throat up. 3-7-9 is wrong. 2-4-10 is wrong. 1-2-3 is wrong.

“Oh, come on,” Lance yells at the function panel, or tries to yell, but the words are ripped clean out of his mouth. He’d be faster at inputting if he just dropped his bayard, but he can’t just drop his bayard, so that’s out -

1-1-1 is wrong. 2-2-2 is wrong. 3-3-3 is probably wrong, but Lance feels like he’s got to put it in anyway, just to check.

It’s wrong. His hair’s getting into his eyes. The panel lets out a buzz every time the activation sequence is input incorrectly, and Lance swears at it.

He looks down. That was - that was a bad idea. In fact, that was definitely his worst idea today. Fuck.

“I told you Ennor was a creep,” he yells at no one, possibly Keith, possibly the function panel, “I told you I was getting bad vibes but did anyone listen to me?” It’s a petty thing to go out on, but damn if Lance isn’t feeling petty right about now. The thing with nearly dying is that it gets old and also doesn’t get old: the fear is still there, it’s just Lance is resolutely trying not to give in to it. Anger is secondary, is easier. “Of course not. Nobody bothered to -”

A hand reaches out and grabs for his wrist, like an echo of when they first arrived, that first day. Keith yanks Lance into his orbit. He pulls at Lance’s wrist so hard it hurts and stabs in three numbers. 5-10-2. The anti-gravity activates with a whooshing noise. Lance feels it envelop him like being the centre of an electric field. The world stops, just like that: the noise of the wind is there, but Lance is blessedly still. He’s no longer falling, the reality of gravity placed on pause. If he looks anything like Keith right now, all his hair is standing on end.

“Whoa,” Lance says, and then, “Your hair looks even weirder than usual,” because he can’t find the words he wants. “Did you know that?”

“That wasn’t the count of three,” Keith repeats, scowling, “Did you know _that_?” but he hasn’t let go of Lance’s wrist yet.

From this height, they’re buffeted by the wind, knocking their bodies into each other. They're floating.

"Keith. Keith, we're _floating_." 

Below them, people are staring up, pointing: too late, Lance realises he hasn’t got his half-mask on, and that he’s almost definitely been recognised. So much for being a nobody. He squints into the middle distance.

“Keith,” Lance mutters, tugging on Keith’s arm, looking over Keith’s shoulder at the encroaching ships headed right their way, “Keith, those look like - is that - are those space police?”

“You mean the discipline corps?” Keith says, twisting to check, “Yeah, looks like it.”

Lance watches them bypass the building Keith and him had been scouting from and head right their way, sirens blaring.

“Wait,” Lance’s head is still ringing, and now there are the sirens and - so this is a lot to take in. “Are we - are we getting arrested?”

 

 

The answer is yes, as it turns out. They’re getting arrested.


	4. Chapter 4

In his dreams, Lance is eighteen again, and the Castle is under attack.

Lance looks behind them, where Keith's handprint is slick and pantomime-bloody against the door lock, last act of a last breath of a last boy standing. He does not look at Keith, Keith who is slumped against the door, because Lance is really good at closing his eyes. Lance is a master of not seeing what's right in front of him. Lance grew up on fairytales where good always wins out and he has to bite his lip and swallow them down a little while longer. And there's something rising in him, something boiling every last feeling in his chest on its way out, something that began with the Garrison, that began before the Garrison. It's every flash of real rage from wrestling his siblings on the sofa, every time he looked at his own face at fourteen and thought _why can't you be more_ , every _cargo pilot_ and extra drill practice and the way the sun burns you from the inside out. Heat always rises to the top. Heat can own you, if you let it.

Lance hoists his bayard up against his shoulder and he says, "Don't you come near us," at the advancing Galra forces. The dark spots in front of his eyes aren't warning signs, they aren't something he can come back from. They're sniperscopes. His voice doesn't sound like his. His voice doesn't sound like anyone's. It sounds like his mother's when Lance was twelve and his niece ran into the road. The dark spots are the hearts of poppies in his aunt's apartment in Havana; they're hollows that don't go away when he blinks.

He fires into negative space. Something in him is a tripwire, replaying Keith's hand sealing the door shut, locking them both in, locking the Galra out of the rest of the Castle.

"You should have run," Keith had gasped, turning around to see Lance at his back, his breath shuddering in his throat, gone bad. "You should have - fuck you, Lance, you should have run."

"It's not fun when you can't keep up," Lance had said numbly, because his voice keeps going when the rest of him isn't, that's how it's always gone, and Keith had laughed. Lance had been so wrapped up in the hoarse sound of Keith's next breath - in the hand clutched to his leaking side like in training, like when a stitch wasn’t actually something that needed sewing up - that he hadn't seen the next blast coming until he saw the colour of it flare in Keith's eyes, until Keith made a low, incoherent noise and shoved Lance out of the way.

"Get away from him," Lance snarls helplessly now, gone beyond childhood with a gun in his hand, "Don't make me say it again. Don't make me -"

There was movie like this once. Lance cried at the end. There's always movies like this one. Lance cries at all of them.

He always tells himself the universe is not meaningless; the universe is patterns, dark spots, negative space. The universe is poppies in Havana and colours in Allura's eyes and heat rising to the top. The universe is Hunk making a copy of _cafe con leche_ , and Pidge's sixteenth birthday, and the universe is not meaningless. There are always patterns. There are _always patterns._ Lance times his breath to the trigger. There is always the power of three. This does not mean that the universe is not cruel.

Lance does not look at Keith. Lance does not look away from the dark spots in his eyes. When they get too close, he flips his hold on his bayard and brings it down on their heads. It's like cutting stems. It's like cutting hair. It's like nursery rhymes with his nephew: sticks and stones may break my bones, but only the other day Keith was laughing and we all fall down.

Suddenly, there's someone grabbing his wrist; suddenly there's someone saying "Lance, stop it. Stop it now," in a voice he knows. Lance lets go of his bayard when Shiro tugs it out of his hand, his eyes wide.

"Lance," Shiro says, "Lance, what _happened.”_

Lance says, "He told me to run."

 

*

 

In the present, Lance wakes up. He doesn’t gasp, but that’s because the air is all trapped in his lungs, frozen there. He’s disoriented and cold, and he’s forgotten where he is: only that it’s not where he’s supposed to be.

“You’re awake,” he hears Keith say, and Lance is still half in the dream that was a memory, so he opens his mouth to say “Yes,” but says, “You’re alive?” instead. So, you know.  There’s that. There’s a silence that’s horrible and awkward after. Lance blinks, trying to muster up some way to salvage it, but eventually he just feels Keith nod. So that’s....that. Lance takes the silence that seems to last forever and uses it to take stock of his surroundings.

They’re in a cell. It’s not the first time. It’s not a Galra cell. It also wouldn’t have been the first time. They’re chained together, back to back, so Lance can feel the heat of Keith’s body against his own, so they can’t move except for together. It’s a reminder that’s not unpleasant but is setting off all kind of things in his head that aren’t helpful.

Lance remembers now: they got arrested, and put in here, and told to wait to be processed. Which is apparently taking some time, long enough that Lance fell asleep, exhausted by the strain of, you know, jumping from a goddamn building and nearly dying. That’s something a body can’t get used to.

He’s deciding - he’s decided that - he’s not thinking about the kissing part until he has to.

“Yeah,” Keith replies, so long afterwards it takes Lance a beat to follow his meaning, “Yeah, I’ve been worse,” and Lance lets out a short, strangled laugh.  

“No sign of your mom yet?” Keith shakes his head. “Huh. You thought she might be putting us in time out? Making us think about what we’ve done?”

“What _we’ve_ done?” Keith echoes, annoyed. “ _You_ smashed open the window. _You_ jumped out. I just -”

“Copied me?”

Keith huffs in reply. Another silence. Lance shifts, trying to get comfortable. Keith puts up with approximately twelve seconds of this before snapping.

“Quit squirming. I’ve already had enough of - look, I wasn’t going to say, but you already drooled on me just now, so -”

“I did not.”

“You did!”

“You absolute liar.”  

“You think I’d lie to you about your own bodily fluids?”

“I don’t know! Maybe! What’s the big deal? You shoved your whole tongue in my mouth, dude, so if you’re about to get all bitchy about saliva, guess what! That ship has fucking _sailed_ , my guy!”

“Oh,” Keith says, “So we _are_ talking about it.”

“Yeah, I guess we are.”

“I guess so.”

Silence. Lance poorly resists the urge to fidget.  

“So,” Keith mutters, “Was that, like - are you - fuck’s sake, what am - what was -”

“I’m bisexual,” Lance says, throws it down on the floor like a glove, like people used to - like he’s challenging Keith to a duel. He stays there for a second, holding in a breath, waiting for Keith to pick it up.

Keith doesn’t. Keith is silent, for so long Lance lets out that same breath and lets his next words fall out.

“Cool,” Lance hears himself saying, and he catches himself running his own damn mouth without actually being able to catch up, “Real easy to tell what you’re thinking over there right now.” God, why can’t he just shut up? “Am I supposed to, what, guess?”

“Nah,” Keith says, quietly, cutting across Lance, tipping his head back so it rests on Lance’s shoulder. When he closes his eyes, his eyelashes scrape against Lance’s skin.  “I was just thinking, that, you know. That you’d finally said it.”

Lance sits with that for a while - sits alone with that for a while, because even though Keith is right there, he’s alone with it.

“I didn’t think it needed to be said,” Lance admits, because it’s true. What did it matter, he’d told himself - what did it matter, that he’d finally made sense of how he was acutely aware of the way other men moved - when he made sense of it after Allura had become everything?

“It doesn’t need to be said,” Keith shrugs, “But I think you needed to say it, and those aren’t the same things.” He taps the flat of his foot against the floor, on and off, a staccato beat that Lance can hear the nerves behind. Can hear Keith swallow before he continues. “For me, anyway, it wasn’t - it wasn’t the same thing.”

Here’s the thing: Keith never came out to them, not in the kind of way Lance had learnt to expect from the movies. He never, like, sat them down or anything. If there had been heartfelt speeches, he’d saved them for Shiro. There had been gossip, back at the Garrison, whispers as Keith walked across the canteen with his eyes on the horizon, skimming over the girls who smiled at him. Lance had just figured it was jealousy, figured it was a way to tear Keith down off his pedestal - and how fucked up is that, that at fifteen Lance had already learnt a way to undermine some other guy was to insinuate he was, you know. By that point, of course, Shiro was already the rising star of the Garrison, their best and their darling, but that’s the thing with trail-blazers: it takes everyone else time to catch up. It takes time for the earth they scorched to bear fruit, made richer than before from the ashes. And when they talked about Keith’s flight times, about how he stood in corridors, head tilted up to listen to Shiro - hanging on his every word like someone might hang onto a cliff edge, hauling themselves up - they were already beginning to say the word _successor._

And then there was Acxa. After the war for Earth was over, Lance had rounded a corner and caught her and Keith kissing, in a rec room somewhere on base. Lance still remembers his blurted out “oh my God” and how Keith had just blinked, eyes huge, at him, and opened his mouth, but Lance had already bolted. Lance waited for Keith to tell people about it, about them dating, and he’s not sure why he did that - why he didn’t just do what he would have a year or so before, and ran right to tell Pidge and Hunk. He’s still not sure. It’s just that somehow, it would’ve felt like telling tales, like it was something Keith shouldn’t have been doing, even though the thought itself made no sense and Lance knew that, he did, it was just -

Weird. The whole thing was weird. But whatever, it was none of his damn business, and Allura was, by that time, taking up most of the space in his head. But then Acxa and Keith broke up, and Keith didn’t seem that cut up, not how Lance expected heartbreak to look. It was like he was heartbroken over something - just not her. And Keith started spending long nights in Shiro’s office, talking with the door shut. And then Keith had just started openly staring at guys on base, head propped on one hand. Lance, filling out approximately a billion forms, since paperwork was still a thing here on Earth even after the world had nearly ended, had finally said something.

“I don’t know if guys are into the whole murder glare thing. Man, it’s like you want to eat them or something -”

Keith had just blinked at him again, just blinked and said: “And?”

And -

Lance hadn’t had a damn clue what to say, was embarrassed about how it had sounded, a little scared about the searing look in Keith’s eyes - like all Lance’s own thoughts were being exposed to an unearthly light. So he’d mumbled something like _good for you, dude,_ and Keith had nodded, once, sharp, and then turned his head. And kept watching. And -

“So, you’re bisexual,” Keith says, in the present. “Good to know.”

“Yeah,” Lance says softly, and he means it. “It is.”

There’s another pause. It’s kind of awkward, so:

“Do you feel kind of awkward?” Lance asks. “I feel kind of awkward.”

“Well, no, I didn’t,” Keith says, sounding annoyed, which is predictable, which soothes Lance in some weird way. “But I think I’m catching it from you.”

“It’s the drool.”

“Nope, it’s definitely you. Ugh.”

“So it’s awkward now for -”

“Yes, Lance, it’s awkward for me now too. Happy?”  

“Thrilled. Misery loves company.”

“Get out of my head.”  

Lance manages about thirty seconds of silence before giving up.

“So, I really think your mom's put us in time out.”

“My mom,” Keith snaps, “Does not do time out. I’m twenty six. That’s too old for time out.”

“You’re never too old for time out.”

“Can’t you go back to sleep?” Keith asks: it’s half-mocking and half-desperate. Instantly, Lance tenses, remembering what he’d been dreaming about. It’s like Keith remembers in the same moment.

“Uh,” Keith says, “Forget I said that.”

“Sorry,” Lance mumbles, “You caught the awkward again, huh?”

“Where were you?” Keith asks, his voice a little softer. “In your head. Before. You were having a nightmare, right? Where did you go?”

“Uh, so.” Lance clears his throat. “Funny story, but - do you remember that time the Castle was attacked, and you got shot?” He feels Keith go very still for a moment. Oh, shit. “I mean, yeah, fuck - I mean obviously you remember _being shot._ My bad, that was a fucking error, stupid wording, you know, I’m -”

“Stop apologising, Lance,” Keith says, sighs it. Tips his head back. Lance feels Keith’s next breath out, feels it ruffle his own hair. “Yeah, I remember. I remember you keeping them away from us, too.”

“Oh,” Lance says, shifts his weight but there’s no give, nowhere to go. “I wasn’t sure if - I don’t think -” He hadn’t wanted Keith to remember that part, because Lance didn’t want to remember that part - didn’t want to remember how he’d come apart at the seams, gone backwards into himself and gone feral with the desire to survive. “That wasn’t a good look on me, huh?”

He can hear his own self-consciousness, stitched through his voice like red thread on a white flag. He cringes, realising that Keith must be able to feel him doing that. Keith doesn’t skip a goddamn beat.  

“Caring isn’t pretty,” Keith replies, and he’s using his Leader Voice. Lance has no idea if Keith knows he’s doing that, but just the tone of it settles something in him, the boy who became a soldier quieting down. “You kept us both alive. That’s all it comes down to.”

“I killed them,” Lance points out. “I hit them until it killed them.”

“One time, when I was working with the Blade, I slit someone’s throat.” Lance is so stunned by this statement, by the calm way in which Keith says it, that he’s frozen. Keith keeps going. “I did it in her bed, when she was sleeping. She never saw it coming. She woke up, but only once it was too late and I’d already done it.” Keith pauses. Lance can feel the waver in his breathing. “And I left her there. And then I went home.”

“Fuck, Keith.”

“You know that? I’d do it again. Not just because she was in charge of one of the prison camps, although that was part of it. Not just because I’d been ordered to by the Blade. But because I went home because of it.” He sighs. “What we did we did to get home, Lance. What you did was to get us home.”

“I don’t know what it makes us,” Lance admits.

“Alive,” Keith replies.

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”    

“You took the shot for me,” Lance mutters. “I know I’ve already said thank you for that, and I know you’re like quasi-constipated about feelings and shit -”

“Really,” Keith mutters, “After this whole conversation, you’re really gonna go and say that, huh?” but he sounds like he’s smiling. Lance finds himself wishing he could turn around and see. Just to check, you know?

“It’s not something where thanking you is gonna wear out, alright? So. Thank you. For then. And for all the times. And for when we first got here, you know, with the, uh. With the airlock. And just then, with the anti-gravity thing. And you know, I’m gonna just thank you in advance so I’ll all paid up, and -”

Keith grabs his hand. It’s an awkward angle, and it’s uncomfortable, and Keith’s hands are cold. It still makes Lance’s chest seize up.

“You know you run your mouth when you’re anxious, right?” Keith tells him.

“It’s my charm point!” Lance protests, and Keith laughs. His fingers tighten for a brief, devastating moment.

“You’re welcome,” Keith says, voice warm, and then lets go. “You’re always welcome, Lance.” 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for emetophobia. (There's a very vague, non-descriptive mention of someone throwing up.)

The call wakes him up. It leaves him scrambling for his phone in the middle of the night, struggling with sleep-numbed fingers to shove the headphones into his ears. It’s muscle memory. It’s all muscle memory.

“Mama?” he says, his eyelids heavy, his room shrunken in the dark. His voice is loud in the muted surroundings. “Mama, it’s me. It’s okay. I’m here -”

“Lance,” Allura says, and that wakes him up a bit more, enough to actually recognise her as, you know. _Not_ his mother.  

“Wow,” Lance sighs, leaning back. “That sounded kind of weird, my bad.”

“Not particularly,” Allura points out. “She used to call you when we were - she used to call then too. It’s not like I’m unaware. Is it terribly late there? No wonder you - I’m sorry, I’ve disturbed you for no reason.”

She’s rambling, in the way Allura does. It had taken him a while to realise the more polite she was, the more flustered she was - retreating behind social niceties as a way of shutting down. Fuck, he’s missed her voice.

“Hey, no,” Lance soothes, rubbing a hand over his face. “No, no, it’s fine. You’re fine. How are you doing?”

“You sound tired,” she frets. She’s fretting. Even though she isn’t in love anymore, she’s still worried for him. It makes something fierce in his chest ache. “Is everything alright?”

Here, Lance decides to lie. He doesn’t tell her about jumping from a building, he doesn’t tell her about the airlock meltdown, he doesn’t tell her about the mission: about Keith and him, locked back to back in a cell, about being bailed out by Krolia, about how Lance is sure she had lingered over the paperwork longer than necessary as punishment. How she had torn into them both, right there in front of the prison guards, her voice never raised but somehow more scary for it. Lance had gone right into parade rest without even thinking about it. About how when Keith had gone, “ _Mom,_ ” she had snapped, “Don’t you _mom_ me, young man,” - and then grabbed him and hugged him so hard and so long Lance had taken to staring at his own feet. Then she had let Keith go, brushed his hair back from his face, and nodded. Keith had nodded back. They had this whole bizarre silent language going on, which made sense given they’d been alone with each other for, what? Two years?

Then she turned to Lance, and Lance had said, “I’m very sorry ma’am -” and then she had grabbed his shoulders and given him a hug too. It had been very weird because it was, you know, Krolia, who undoubtedly had more knives on her person than anyone else in the room, Keith included. It hadn’t been bad, though.

None of this is what he wants Allura to hear, though, so he edits. Heavily. And he doesn’t tell her about Keith most of all. Is lying by omission as bad as denial?

“It’s all going according to plan, princess,” is what Lance tells her. He isn’t obligated to - he doesn’t have to tell her anything anymore. There’s a pause, where they both get used to him calling her that - _princess_ \- outside of the context of what they were. Lance isn’t sure how it sounds yet. From the silence, Allura isn’t either. He hurries on. “You didn’t say about you, though. What’s eating you?”

She wouldn’t be calling right now if there wasn’t something. Lance is sure of it.

“I was just - it is very - it’s not so late here, and I - it was vexing me a little, thinking over everything, and - I - Lance, did we make a mistake?”

“No,” Lance says, after a moment. “No, we didn’t. We did everything right, you know?”

They had done everything they were supposed to, and the fact it still hadn’t been enough to last forever - Lance isn’t that surprised to hear the anxiety bleeding through Allura’s voice. She’d always struggled with being anything less than perfect.

“Was I - did I make a mistake, by saying something? By saying it was over? Maybe if I hadn’t -”

“Allura,” Lance interrupts her now. “You told the truth. If we’d kept going, we’d have only hated each other, and I don’t -”

“You don’t hate me.”

“I can’t hate you,” Lance replies, which is also the truth, which is something harder to wrestle with. Because he wants to. He wants to hate her, because it hurts, and because he wants someone to blame for it hurting. But he doesn’t. He loves her, but it’s not how he used to love her. He’s just a boy from Cuba who loved a girl from another world, and it’s not a state he’s in anymore. It’s something he _is_. Allura was everything, and now she isn’t, but that doesn’t make her nothing. He’s just not sure where she’ll be, in a place between apathy and guilt and the weight of who they were.

So he edits. Is this lying by omission, too?  “It’s late, Allura. It’s just - it’s what it is. You have to give it time.”

He’s got to stop her, or she’s going to pick the whole wound open again. He can just feel it. She’s stubborn like that. It’s a quality he’s always adored, but one he appreciates slightly more when he’s not sleep-fuzzy and aching.

“I miss you.”

“Me too,” Lance sighs. “It’s - it’s -” He gives up and listens to her breathing for a while.

It’s growing pains, is what it is. They’re transforming into something else. That’s the part nobody tells you about the chrysalis: in order to evolve, your insides get all turned to soup.  

“You were lying just then, you know.”

“I wasn’t lying -”

“When you said it was all going according to plan. Are you sure things are fine? Is Keith -”

“It’s fine, Allura, please just - just drop it. You don’t have to -”

“I know, I just - I don’t know how to - and I can always tell.”

“I know you can. Goodnight.”

 

*

 

The next morning, Lance skips breakfast so he can sleep through. The thought of having to face reasonable people at a reasonable hour is -

Fuck that, honestly. So he sleeps through, and still yawns so often during the morning briefing that he can feel Keith’s gaze growing sharper from next to him. The proximity is.....not as comfortable as it could be, given recent circumstances. Lance isn’t sure what would constitute a decent proximity though, since when Keith peels off towards his mother during the break - slotted in between briefing and the emergency High Council meeting the whole Ennor Zelxoin situation has made mandatory - Lance watches Keith leave his side with a weird, twisting feeling in his stomach.

The High Council meeting is barely controlled chaos. Lance has sat through a lot of last-minute emergency meetings in his life, listening to Allura and Shiro give polished, heartfelt speeches, but this morning the idea of having to appeal to someone’s better nature for the billionth time just wears him right out. So he doesn’t bother for at least the first twenty minutes. He’s not one of them, anyway. He’s a foreigner from another planet who’s shown up only to accuse one of their own. From some of the glances he’s getting, he’s pretty sure Keith’s presence, and Krolia’s seat on the Council, is the only thing keeping him - Major Lance McClain y Diaz, Blue Paladin, pilot of the Red Lion, at least one sixth responsible for _saving their asses from extinction_ \- from being booted back to Earth.

He leans back in his chair, watching Keith lean forward towards the Council, eyebrows drawn down and mouth set like granite. His hands are down flat on the table, and shift to gripping onto his holo-pad, the knuckles whitening. Lance has a sudden memory of Keith, stood in the Castle of Lions, shoulders back, being circled by Allura who was lecturing him about posture, about public speaking. How she’d said, quite calmly, as though she wasn’t aware she wasn’t meant to be have noticed, that if Keith’s hands shook in front of large crowds, he had to find something to hold onto. Keith had flushed, nodded, sent a vicious look Lance’s wandering way. Lance, for his part, had very sensibly zipped his mouth shut and bolted.

It’s an odd memory to think about. He remembers the lightning-strike of jealousy like it was yesterday, like all that electricity stayed simmering under his skin, but it’s lessened to only a low buzzing now. And he remembers it tearing through him with such intensity. Weird.

Right now, Keith kicks him under the table, jolting him. Lance kicks him back on instinct before looking up to find the assorted Council members’ gazes trained on him. Oh. That’s not good.

“Do you agree with your fellow Paladin’s assessment, Major McClain?” the Minister for Finance asks.

Shit.

“I’ll -” Lance stumbles through it, glancing over to Keith, who is all raised eyebrows and no help whatsoever. “Yeah, sure. I - I second Keith.” Sure, why the hell not? “He led Voltron during the war and - and I’ve followed him for years, you know?” Lance can feel himself warming up to his theme, watching their expressions soften. He can see Krolia’s eyes shifting from amusement to something else. He doesn’t look at Keith. “I’ve always followed him. I’ve followed him in situations where, if I’m honest, I didn’t agree, but that’s only - only since I maybe didn’t understand all of it. Sometimes, he sees more than I do.” Mostly because he listens in meetings and doesn’t have to bullshit half so goddamn much, Lance thinks to himself, keeps going. “I shouldn’t speak for how your planet does things. I don’t know how you do things. I’d need to know a lot more, but since this is pretty time-sensitive - and Keith - Keith is one of you. He’s always been one of you, even before any of us knew it. And you all trust him, right? So, yeah. Keith’s call is mine.”

Christ, can Keith stop looking at him like - Lance darts his eyes over briefly - yeah, like that? He looks all kinds of caught out, and he’s too close to Lance to be making a face like that, thank you very much.

“I see,” the Minister for Finance says. She steeples fingers dipped in some kind of silver dye. “The Council will put it to a vote, but I think the decision is likely to reflect the discussions of this meeting. Ennor Zelxoin will stand trial for conspiracy to overthrow the state of Second Daibazaal.” She sighs. Lance sighs, internally, realising he’s sweating a bit.

“Now that we have reached this juncture,” the Minister for - Justice, was it? - The Minister for Justice starts talking now, and Lance makes sure to pay attention this time. “I feel it is polite for us to disclose exactly how instrumental the Paladins of Voltron were in this regard. We had our suspicions, but truly, we needed the High Council’s sole awareness of the presence of the Paladins here, planetside, in order to spur Ennor into risky action.”

“What?” says Lance, at the same time Keith goes, “Of course.”

“The Fires of Purification have you as prime targets, naturally. And Ennor is a glory-hound. It seems, like Krolia suggested, he wouldn’t be able to resist making some kind of move to capture you both himself. A foolish move, but beneficial for our goals.”

It takes Lance a few beats to catch up. So, the High Council lied to them. That’s....not that surprising, given the numbers of Blade of Marmora present, but it’s still -

It still stings. Next to him, Keith looks remarkably calm. _Of course,_ Lance thinks. _Of course he does. He’s one of them. You just said it yourself. He’s the main Earth agent on assignment here. He knew all along, didn’t he?_

Cool. So Lance was the last to know. Fine. It’s -

It’s whatever.

He can see Keith frowning, knows he’s tensed up himself. Lance takes in a breath, lets it out, tries to unclench his shoulders. It mostly works. It’s all undone in the next thirty seconds, when the Minister for Justice says, “I assume, Keith, that you will assist your fellow Paladin in the preparations for the trial? I have been informed legal proceedings are somewhat different on your birth planet.”

“They are?” Lance says, looking at Keith. Keith looks grim.

“They are,” Keith informs her. “I’ll catch him up to speed.”

“Perfect. Naturally, please remember to submit your weapons of choice a moon cycle early for approval.”

“Weapon choices?” Lance knows he’s echoing her, and it’s going to do nothing for his reputation as the Paladin with the least smarts going, but -

“You don’t have to decide today, Major McClain. If it helps to hear, Ennor favours a crossbow. Then, if we are all in agreement -”

 _No,_ Lance thinks furiously, _No, we are fucking not -_

“I thank you all for your time. Thus concludes the Council.”

 

*

 

Lance collars Keith outside of the meeting hall, less than ten seconds after - well, whatever _that_ was because -

“Keith,” Lance says, hearing the brittle sound to his own voice, “Don’t mind me, you know, just _excuse the fuck_ -”  

“Not right here,” Keith says, taking a look at his expression. “At least pretend we’re on the same page,” and grabs Lance’s arm and bodily hauls him down the corridor, Lance spluttering.

“What page? Who said anything about pages? Buddy, we’re not even reading from the same book. We’re not even in the same fucking library -”

“It’s not my fault you were zoning out in the middle of the meeting, is it?”

Once again, this is such a disgustingly reasonable argument that Lance wants to, very unreasonably, throw a tantrum. Ugh. What has Shiro even been _teaching_ Keith? 

“Okay, so, just so you know,” Lance twists his head around to see where the hell they’re going, gives up, “You have twenty seconds, on the clock, before I begin to scream.”

“Wow,” Keith mutters, “You must’ve been a joy in kindergarten.”

“Ten seconds,” Lance warns him. “Earth ones. Better start breaking the bad news to me fast, pal.”

“Remember when I joined the Blade?” is what Keith goes for and Lance rolls his eyes.

“Do I remember us almost ambushing a secret hideout in a wormhole because you had to go on some identity quest?” Lance gestures mockingly at Keith’s Blade uniform. “Yes, shockingly, I do recall that, Keith.”

“You just used up my ten seconds,” Keith points out. Whatever the look on Lance’s face is makes him drop it, though. “Look, that didn’t - come from nowhere. Galra are kind of like -”

“Kind of like that, yes. I hadn’t guessed.”

“Lance, you’re on a planet full of Galrans. Watch your fucking volume.”

“Excuse me, _I_ should watch _my_ -”

Keith stops in front of a nondescript door and punches in an access code. Lance barely has a moment to wonder about it before the door swishes open and Keith bodily shoves Lance into the -

Apartment. It’s an apartment. It’s a nice apartment. It has windows that are floor to ceiling, facing the botany preserve Lance has been staring at longingly for the past, you know, forever. He only gets a glimpse of the green and silver before Keith stabs a sequence code into a panel by the door and the curtains drop down, leaving them in darkness.

“You know,” Lance finds himself saying, “If you were trying to get me alone, you could’ve just -”

“Do not,” Keith mutters, “Do not even start with me, Lance. I’m not the one who -”

Lance barely gets to enjoy how close Keith is, how strangely intimate the whole situation is, before there’s the sound of him punching in more numbers and the lights snap on. Lance finds himself staring at the sofa, which is twisted around to face the now-curtained window, still with blankets and pillows strewn over it. An abandoned cup of coffee, half-full, a skin growing on it. A holo-pad idling on standby.

There’s a couple of stray hair-ties too, scattered across the table, a clear container full of them and some hairpins left spilling open. Lance’s brain takes all of this in, skips back to that detail, and abruptly screeches to a halt.

“Keith,” Lance is saying, “Is this - do you - is this your place?”

He doesn’t understand. This is - he thought Keith had been assigned a room on the same floor as Lance. Lance had seen them show it to him. Or, wait. No. He hadn’t. He hadn’t technically ever seen them show Keith a room, Keith had just said “I’m going to go drop off my stuff, I’ll see you in ten?” and Lance had just nodded and -

And had assumed. And he was wrong. And Keith has a whole, nice, really nice apartment on an alien planet.

What the _fuck._

“Sort of?” Keith is saying now. “It’s like - Mom had them assign me this. Hers is just down the way, so, like - I only stay here when I’m -”

“Oh my god,” Lance says, “Your mom got you an apartment.”

“Technically?” Keith sounds impatient, blowing stray hair out of his eyes. “Lance, this really isn’t a priority right now.”

“How come you never told us you had an apartment?”

“Lance.”

“I’m just saying. You would all know if I had an apartment.”

“Lance, you do have an apartment.”

“You would all know if I had a _secret_ apartment.”

“Then it wouldn’t be - Lance, focus.”

“Damn, son,” Lance says, taking in all the chrome finishings. Look, he’s seen reality television with the best of them. If you think Hunk, Pidge and him don’t spend Saturday nights watching vid-streams together and yelling at the realtors -

This is a _nice_  nice apartment, is all he’s saying.

“This is a _nice_  nice apartment, is all I’m saying,” Lance says, and Keith sighs at him.

“Lance,” Keith says in reply, “It’s a trial by combat.” He pauses, looks around self-consciously. “Do you want to, like, sit down or something - I can move my shit off the sofa and -”

“ _A trial by combat_ ,” Lance repeats. He does not screech.

“Yes,” Keith says, “I kept trying to say. Stop screeching.”

“A trial,” Lance says, for a second time. “By combat.”

“I just said that. You just said that. Do you want - am I meant to offer you coffee?”

“Who taught you all these, like, social niceties? Was it Shiro? Was it - oh my god, was it Krolia? Also, we’re not doing a trial by combat.”

“Yes, we are,” Keith informs him, “And actually, it was Hunk. Look, I’m just going to start making coffee and you’re just going to have to take what you want.”

“Hunk?” Lance decides to drop it, because there’s only so much he can manage to focus on at any given time on a good day. Today is not a good day. The sofa feels dangerous somehow, all the evidence of a sleeping Keith right there, so he settles for the other chair. The space smells like Keith, and he allows himself a full five seconds of self-loathing for thinking that, and then he remembers how much the smell of Allura’s perfume used to fuck with him, and how it slowly lost its power, and so he has to dedicate at least twenty seconds to that, and by that point Keith is crouched in front of him, holding out a cup of coffee.

“You doing okay in there?” he asks.

“I’m refusing to do the trial,” Lance tells him, taking the cup. That was fast. Too fast. Of course it was too fast, nothing else is making sense today. Why not? He takes a defeated sip. It is, naturally, really good. “I’m going back there and saying I’m not going to and they can’t make me.”

“You agreed in front of witnesses and they can absolutely make you,” Keith counters. “Only it’s us. We’re the ones who made the accusation. So it’s both of us, actually.”

“Did you agree to this? Earlier?”

“You really weren’t listening even a little bit, were you?”

“Did you agree to this?”  

“Yes,” Keith says, calmly, like that isn’t absolutely insane of him. Like that isn’t something an absolutely insane person would say. “It’s the only way.”

“Since when?”

“It’s tradition.”

“You hate tradition. Try again.”

“I want to beat the shit out of him for making me have to jump out of a building.”

“Getting warmer. Still not buying it.”

“I want to beat the shit out of him for making you have to jump out of a building?”

“Oh, come on.”

“That’s literally it, though. Sorry if you don’t like it,” Keith says, and gets up from where he’s been crouching, which is how Lance realises they’ve been very, very close that whole time. He turns his back and goes to get his coffee.

“You - no, you don’t get to use _me_ as an excuse for entering me into a fucking gladiator match! That’s not how it works!”

“Okay,” Keith concedes, “It’s literally but not entirely it.”

“I knew it. I fucking knew it. Go on.” Lance makes a beckoning gesture. “Hit me with it.”

Keith sits down on the corner of the sofa.

“Look,” Keith shrugs. “The trials by combat are bullshit.”

“ _Thank you._ ”

“But they’re - a lot of people here think they’re part of our culture. That if we change them, we’re just losing more of what makes us - there’s a lot people lost. They’re scared. They think preserving everything as it was will protect - it’ll protect us.” Keith worries at the handle of his mug with his thumb, bites his lip. “They think change is erasure, and after everything it makes them - and I can’t - I’ve been trying, but - I’m not here enough. I can’t - I don’t know how to fix it.”  

And then he does the eyes. Lance doesn’t think Keith even knows when he does the eyes, which makes them all the more potent. Hunk and him have discussed this in the past. So:

“Oh,” Lance says, then, “Shit.”

“Yeah, basically,” Keith concludes. He drains his mug, his eyes lowered. “You know, you should go.”

“I should go?” Lance is confused. “Like, you want to be on your own right now, or -”

“No,” Keith says. “You should go back to Earth. We can claim there’s - you could just - they can’t summon you back in time for the trial if you go tonight.”

“Do you want me to go?” Lance has got to admit, it’s tempting. It’s real tempting. But it’s also - it feels wrong, in a way that makes him want to dig his heels in. They were in this together. He’s been in Keith’s head before, and it’s a segue of different people’s silhouettes, all in retreat. It’s foster parents and children’s homes and principals. It’s Shiro, walking up the steps towards the Kerberos shuttle. It’s the trials at the Marmora base, Keith dragging himself forward towards a strange and uncertain future.

It’s Shiro’s funeral, the one they all thought was for real, and how Keith kept his eyes forward and locked onto the shoulders of the dignitary sat in front of him so he wouldn’t cry. Lance knows all of that, even though he doesn’t want to. Keith knows he knows that, and he’s damn sure Keith doesn’t want him to either. See, the side-effect of the mind-sharing thing is that Lance knows five people in this world in a way he may never know people again.  

And Keith is still giving Lance a chance to walk away from this.

“Just so I know,” Lance says, clearing his throat. He makes Keith hold eye contact with him whilst he asks. “What did you say in the meeting?”   

“I was arguing to take on the trial alone at first,” Keith replies, “But -”

“On brand of you,” Lance can’t help saying. “But?”

“We make a good team,” Keith says simply, like that isn’t devastating. “And I think we could use the trial to fix things.”  

“You think us participating in some kind of weird murder ritual could - ”

“Fight fire with fire. And it’s not a weird murder ritual, Lance.”

“It kind of is.”

He knows they’re both thinking of Shiro in that moment.

“It’s something people believe in. That’s what gives it power. We just have to give them something else instead.”

“You think,” Lance says slowly, “That we can take down the justice system of a planet from the inside - A, without hurting anybody; and B, without causing some kind of civil war?”

“When you put it like that,” Keith mutters.

“Dude, just admit you panicked. Is it that hard?”

“Yes!” Keith snaps, “Yes, alright? I panicked. I didn’t want to do this by myself, and you were right there, and - and, look, I expected you to say no. Then we could have, I don’t know - I didn’t expect you to agree with me.”

“Oh, so now it’s my fault?”

“No?”

“It kind of sounds like that’s what you’re saying, dude.”

“It’s not what I’m saying.”

“Then, what is it you are trying to say to me?”

Lance isn’t sure what he expects Keith to say, but “Please help me,” was nowhere on that list. It’s what Keith is actually saying to him, though.

“Wait, what?”

“Lance,” Keith says, “You can go home, okay? I can’t order you to say. This one, it’s on me, and - I just thought - I wasn’t thinking. I was -”

“You were?”

“Scared,” Keith tells him, and what _is it today_ with Keith dropping these truths all over like place like they aren’t setting things on fire in Lance’s chest. “But I can’t let Ennor get away. If we forfeit the trial -”

“He’ll be on the next ship out of here before we can say sayonara. Gotcha.” Lance sighs. “You are going to owe me the favour of all favours, you know. Like. Your firstborn. It’s going to be on that level. You know that, right?”

“You’re staying, then?” Keith has no right to look so absurdly hopeful, has no right to be sat in his own damn apartment begging for Lance’s help, has no right to -

“Yeah,” Lance says, “Guess I am.”  

 

*

 

When he checks his holo-pad, there's a missed call from Allura. She wants to apologise for last night, Lance is sure of it. He still doesn't call her back. 

 

*

 

So Lance does the only acceptably unacceptable thing to do in this kind of situation. He gets drunk. It’s something he hasn’t done for years - get deliberately drunk that is, get too drunk, see his own limits and charge right at them like a cornered animal bolting, no way out but through. Lance came of age during a war, the war is all he’s ever known his entire adulthood, and that means he had seen too many good people try their hand at forgetting this way. He couldn’t blame them, but it left him wary, questioning his own motives when he knocked too many back. And then there’s the other thing with trying to scramble your brains: you have no idea what’s going to float to the surface, stirring the pot like that.

But then there’s the another thing: when your girlfriend just ditched you, people expect you to get misery-drunk, expect you to lick up shots until you choke them all back up. It’s what humans do. It’s what people do. Lance wants to feel like a person.

He’s not sure he should get to feel like a person.

The alcohol is imported onto Second Daibazaal, but that doesn’t mean it’s all from Earth. Lance picks something that glows like a warning sign. He has three. You can’t feel guilt if you can’t remember anything outside of your body feeling good, overwarm but good; your perspective narrowing to the bartop, sticky-hot under your fingertips, your pulse thick in your own ears, or maybe that’s just the music. Does it matter, really? Does it?

Does he want it to?

Keith came by at...he came by, at a previous time, and asked if Lance was doing okay. Lance had told him not to worry, but Keith was worrying anyway. Lance could tell he was. He scrunches his eyebrows. It’s kind of cute, or rather it would be if Lance was going there with his thoughts, which he is not. He has no intention of going there. Swerving right off on that one.

But, also, if he was gonna go there -

Keith’s left him a glass of water, right next to him. Lance is surprised Keith knew to put it by his left hand. He’s technically ambidextrous, but he learnt to write left-handed first. So, if he’s not paying much attention, he’ll take whatever’s handed to him with his left -  

Wow. That’s a lot of hands going on. Anyway, Keith has left him a glass, and he thought he was being subtle about it, Lance could tell - could see him nudge it a little closer with his fingertips as he put his palm down on the bartop, standing up, their shoulders touching. The condensation was cold against the back of Lance’s hand, travelling up his arm, and when Keith leaned in to say, “My mom’s - I’ve go to go - I’ll be right back,” the counterpoint of his breath gave Lance chills, somehow.  

He’s only being so nice because he feels bad, but it feels -

It feels good to be fussed over.

Actually, you know what? If this is what feeling like a person is meant to be like, Lance changes his mind.

“I want a refund,” he mutters to his fourth drink.

“I don’t think that works when you’re already half through it,” a voice next to him says. “Not even when you’re, you know -”

Lance looks at them, already feeling tired. The alien next to him is humanoid, with two sets of glossy eyes that glint, dark, dark red, like the carapace of a beetle. When he smiles, it’s -

Nice. Huh. Damn.

“Sorry,” he says, “Wasn’t trying to start something. You’re the -”

“Yup,” Lance says, “That’s me.”  

The smile widens. His eyes rove all over Lance’s face, and it’s like he can feel them, the weight of the gaze a pressure. It flushes through him, the awareness of it, as his eyes dip, drop, rise again. Settle on Lance’s face.

“Didn’t let me finish. You get that a lot then?”

“Pretty much. Are you checking me out?”

Wow, so that’s his brain to mouth filter done gone and dissolved, then.

“Pretty much,” the guy echoes, shrugging. The easy acknowledgment of it jolts through Lance. He sits up a little straighter. “You know, I saw you back when you were doing those arena shows.”

The cold from the water glass is pressing into Lance’s arm, more insistent now, cooling the back of his wrist. He pushes it away.

“Uh-huh,” Lance replies. “Those sure were a thing that happened.”

“Yeah. You know, you’re pretty hot in person, too.”

“.....thanks?”

“Sorry, that didn’t really sound -”

“Like a compliment, no.” Lance takes another swallow. “It didn’t.”

He needs to go pee, he decides. When he slides down off the bar stool to the liquid-sticky floor, he stumbles a bit: the alien shoots out one of his hands, catching Lance around the waist, steadying him.

“Easy there,” he says, his smile all teeth.

“Thanks,” Lance bites out, unwrapping himself from the hold and making his way to the bathroom.

It’s barely a second into him washing his hands before Keith appears. Lance looks down at his hands, looks up, and Keith is there in the mirror’s reflection, like something out of a horror movie. It startles him, badly.

“Jesus Christ,” he says, “Give a guy some warning.”

He moves out of the motion sensor, shaking the water from his hands. The water coming out of the sink cuts off. It’s kind of a waterfall effect, which is super neat, and Lance possibly spent more time admiring than he wants to admit. Okay, he was maybe washing his hands longer than a second. Or a minute. Or five minutes.

Okay, he’s possibly been in here a while.

“The dude you were next to already bought you another drink,” Keith tells him. His expression is opaque. “He told the bartender to ‘keep them coming.’”

Oh, no, he did air quotes. Not so opaque after all. Keith _disapproves._

“Are you stalking me?” is what Lance hears himself replying with, turning on his heel a little too fast. The floor is way too slippery for that. Keith catches him by the arm, steadying him.

“You know he’s only buying you drinks so you have sex with him.”

“Yes, thank you,” Lance replies. He can hear the ice in his voice, and from Keith’s widening eyes, he can too. He prays the flash of humiliation, gone right through his body like a livewire, is better concealed. Keith is still holding onto his arm. Lance pulls against the grip. “I can tell that.”

“Okay,” Keith says, his mouth a line. “I just figured you should -”

“Know? Already did, buddy-o,” Lance can hear the mean streak lacing through his words, a mile wide and counting. It’s just -

It’s just it’s not. It isn’t any of Keith’s damn business, all up in Lance’s face like he’s trying to protect Lance’s damn honour or something. There’s no Allura in the picture, and one kiss isn’t ownership, not when Keith’s made no moves to repeat it. It’s just the way Keith looked like he said it, _he’s only buying you drinks so you have sex with him,_ like he hadn’t told Lance less than two days ago this is just a variation on the same theme Keith and James are playing along with back on Earth.

 _Hypocrite,_ Lance thinks, with a ferocity that surprises him.

“We’re friends,” Keith tells him, stubbornly, “And you’re drunk. And I don’t know, you didn’t seem that into -”

“Does that matter? I thought you didn’t have to like someone, right? You just have to like, what was it again -”

Keith’s face shutters.

“I’m just saying you don’t have to,” Keith says, “Like, you don’t have to go with the first person to look at you twice just because you’re -”

He stops. _Single,_ he was going to say, or maybe _sad_ : both are true. Lance is incredibly angry at the thought of either.

“You think he’s really the first person? Come on, Keith. I’m the Blue Paladin.” He looks at Keith, eyes slipping to Keith’s mouth without even thinking for a beat. Drags his gaze back up. “ _He’s_ not the first person.”

That one lands hard. Looking at Keith’s face, Lance immediately regrets it.

“Shit,” he scrambles, “I’m sorry. I’m just - it’s just like -”

_It’s just like I keep thinking about you, and it’s a really bad idea, and it’s the worst idea I’ve ever had, and I think maybe I’ve been thinking about it for a long time, and maybe it’s a phase, and maybe it’d - and who cares if he’s only into me because I’m a paladin, anyway? I’m not good at being a person anyway, and maybe it’s hot to not - to not have to be a person, to just be a blank someone else can press all their want onto like licking a stamp. I’m just -_

_Just a body on the ground, just -_

“I’m just being an asshole,” Lance decides. “And I’m - and I’m taking it out on you, and that’s not cool. Can I take that one back?”

“It’s fine,” Keith replies, “It’s fine,” although it’s clearly not. “Go on then. Sorry I cared.” The words are spat out so fast they blur into each other. “You’re right, it’s none of my business. You’re shit to be around when you’re this sad anyway.”  

“I didn’t ask you to be around,” Lance replies faintly.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Keith says, “I know why you asked to be here, and it’s fine, I get it. I’m just not good at this -” Here, he gestures at Lance. “I think maybe you should have gone with someone else - had Shiro give you another brief - because I’m trying my best here and I - just stop looking at me like that already!”

“I don’t know how I’m looking?” Lance is confused. “It’s just my face, dude.”

“Don’t,” Keith hisses, “Call me dude.”

And then he leaves. Lance only hesitates a split second before rushing after him, weaving through the crowded bar. He doesn’t even pause when he gets by his previous seat. Damn, Keith can move fast when he puts his mind to it, and Lance is slowed by all the liquid warning signs he’s downed.  

By the time he makes it out into the corridor, Keith is almost headed around the corner.

“Hey, Keith!” Lance yells. “Keith, wait up! Keith, du - Keith, I’m sorry! Keith, I’m sorry, so will you wait up -”

Keith stops, rocking back on his heels. Lance runs, full-speed, towards him, and screeches to a halt.

“Keith,” he gasps, “I’m really, really sorry,” and then is promptly sick.

 

*

 

“Hey,” Lance says, half an hour later in yet another public bathroom Keith had ushered them into and locked the door. “You’re mad at me.”

“I’m not mad at you,” Keith says, sounding extremely mad at him. “Rinse your mouth out.”

“Yes, you are,” Lance argues, voice garbled by the toothpaste thing they’d gotten out of a vending machine down the way. “You are really, really mad at me.”

He can’t help but think how, even so, Keith had been so careful when he held Lance’s head over the toilet bowl, taking most of Lance’s weight.  

“No, I’m not.”

“Are so.”

“Am not - oh my god, look, it’s fine. I’m not mad at you.”

Lance spits out the toothpaste thing, rinses his mouth out again by bending his head close to the tap.

“You can be mad at me if you want.”

“Yes,” Keith says, “Yes. You’re right about that. Because I do. I do want to be mad at you.”

“You should be mad at me.”

Keith doesn’t reply, simply unlocks the door.  

“Keith. Hey. Hey, Keith. Where are we going? Keith. Keith, where are we -”

“Next time, I’ll leave you to make your own way back,” Keith mutters. It’s a lie. It sounds like a lie, and they both hear it, which is embarrassing, really. “We’re getting you some water, alright? And then you are going to bed.”

“Seriously,” Lance says softly, trailing after Keith down an endless maze of corridors. “Why are you being so nice to me?”

“I’m not being nice to you. I wasn’t nice to you just then.”

“You were trying to be nice.”

“Yeah, well, we’re friends, aren’t we?” Keith sighs. “We’re friends, and you’re, like - Lance, you’re basically kind of a wreck at the moment, but we’re still friends. I still, you know, like you and stuff. And I, I sort of know what it’s like. To be angry because you’re sad.”

“I don’t want to be angry anymore,” Lance admits. Keith looks at him, a long, slow look.

“I know,” is all he says in reply.

  


*

 

Keith takes Lance to some kind of canteen, punching in a passcode. Lance sits where he’s told at a table, distracted by the faint buzzing sound from the lights, and Keith brings him a whole two-litre bottle of water.

“Drink,” he says. It’s an order. Lance drinks. He’s still drunk, and Keith is right there, tired-eyed. The lights, harsh as they are, do him no favours. He still looks -

"Hey, Keith. Why didn't we ever, you know?" Lance asks. He feels washed out and empty, and his mouth tastes like that toothpaste thing Keith had gone and gotten for him, one more silent kindness, and after tonight -

It’s not like after tonight Keith is going to want to kiss him again, so, you know. Why not just say it?

“You know?” Keith echoes him. It’s a deliberate delay and Lance can sense it.

“Why didn’t we ever fuck?” he says, forcing the word out. Keith reels back from him. It's a weird, grim kind of satisfaction Lance feels, watching Keith rattled, watching Keith watching him with wary eyes. “I mean, we did kiss. That did happen. I mean, I started it, but, like - I guess I always felt like -

"You're drunk," Keith says quietly. 

"I still know what I'm saying." 

"Right." 

"This is why, isn't it?" Lance gestures at the space Keith just put between them. "It’s fine. Just say you didn't want to, dude. It’s fine."   
  
Keith keeps his lips pressed together.   
  
"So. You're not saying it." Lance's feelings are all kind of distant, floating apart and separate from him. "Still not saying it." A silence. " _Still_ not saying it."

Keith doesn't respond, which is a response. Lance is realising that's a response. Lance reaches out towards Keith; just as before, Keith leans out of reach. It doesn't make any fucking sense. Lance drops his hands back down. After a beat, Keith settles again.

"But you didn't say anything,” Lance says.

"I didn't," Keith agrees. "Drink some more water.”

Lance snatches the whole bottle out of his hands. There’s about half left. He downs it all, even though he realises about midway slamming down ice water is a terrible mistake -water spilling from the corners of his mouth and down his shirt, the cold making his eyes water.

“Oh,” Keith mutters, “Oh, that’s real smart, Lance.”

Lance slams down the empty bottle in reply, gasping for breath. He wipes his face on his shirt, which, again, that’s a mistake - it’s like trying to dry your hair with a wet towel.

“There,” he says, somewhat belatedly. Then, after another moment, he remembers to add a winning, “Don’t tell me what to do.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“Okay,” Lance says, “So you don’t want - you didn’t want me to go along with that guy and you wanted me - but you don’t want to right now. So, that’s. That’s fair.”

“I’m not feeling up for bending you over this table right now, no,” Keith replies. “If that’s what you’re asking. You're drunk and I'm still pissed at you.”

His gaze is level. It’s a challenge.

“Fuck,” Lance mutters, hindbrain hooked on that first part, and downs more of the water for something to do. Then, because it’s like pressing on a bruise: “Is this past tense? Are we talking past tense?”

“You really want to get into this right now?” Keith asks him, unsmiling, and Lance shrugs and says, “Yeah? Maybe? You have any better ideas?” Lance is uncomfortably aware of how cold his shirt is now. “Never isn’t a better idea, by the way. I’m just - you don’t get to pick never.”

Keith rolls his eyes and scowls at the floor. He has the face of a man who was entirely ready to schedule in this conversation for _never._

“Like,” Lance can hear himself turning petulant, “Why are you here, dude? If you’re not gonna - why are you even here?”

“It’s not past tense,” Keith says. He sounds so resigned. It tugs at something in Lance’s chest, even though Lance has to sort of go and remind himself about what they’d been talking about, so it takes him way longer than it should to get it. When he finally does, he looks up at Keith, and he isn’t sure what his own face is doing, but Keith’s face is sure doing a lot, there.

“Oh,” Lance says, finally, “Oh, wow,” which isn’t really any kind of answer, but Keith nods, sort of solemnly and sort of awkwardly, and he says, “Yeah,” and that’s -

“You’re the one who brought this up in the first place,” Keith adds. “So if you’re about to make this awkward -”  

“I’m not gonna!”

“Good. Don’t. Do not make this into something.”

“I said I’m not! I’m just, you know, processing.”

“Do I have to sit and watch you process?” Keith says, at the same time Lance goes, “It kind of is something, though, right?”

Lance scoots a bit closer. He has to stop and move the bottle out of the way, but he manages to make it over without Keith bolting.

“It is, right?” Lance says, and then he decides to go all in. Cards on the table, you know? At least he can sail out of this disaster knowing he’s said everything. “We could, you know. We could make it something. And I get you don't want to right now, and like, maybe I took the option off the table, which, you know, fair. But. It's still - I mean, it's an option for me. At least. Maybe.”

He moves his hand so it’s brushing the side of Keith’s. And Keith -

Keith fucking shivers, and looks away from him, and the visual has Lance’s mouth dropping open because wow, okay, _okay._ He opens his mouth, about a billion different things all crowding into his mouth. _Fuck, you’re hot_ and _so on a scale of one to ten how opposed are you to being kissed like, right this second_ and _why didn’t you tell me you could look at me like that?_  

“Are you blushing?” is what he says instead.

“Alright,” Keith decides, apparently having reached his bullshit limit for the evening, “Alright, I’m dropping you off and heading to bed,” but Lance notices Keith doesn’t say no. Keith spots Lance opening his mouth, and he cuts across anything Lance was about to come up with an, “Alone. By myself. Solo.”

“Oh man,” Lance says, letting Keith help him up, “You totally are. You know you are, right?”

“I know now,” Keith mutters, reaching down and snagging the bottle. Huh. Lance had forgotten about that. “Do you remember where you’re going?”

“Nah,” Lance tells him, which is an absolute, cheerful lie, and he can tell Keith knows it’s a lie, but Keith doesn’t call him out on it, which. Huh.

Instead, Keith tows him down the corridors, then pausing to double-check the numbers above each door, chewing the inside of his cheek. Lance trails along dutifully. Keith keys in the passcode for Lance’s door, and Lance will want to know how Keith knows that later, and then he deposits Lance in the doorway. Lance notices Keith doesn’t risk walking him further inside, which is probably for the best.

The flush is still there, raised along the line of his cheekbones. Lance reaches out and presses his fingertips against Keith’s cheek before he can help himself, feeling the heat there, and Keith stands there and lets him, watching him with still, dark eyes.

“You were jealous,” Lance says, realisation hitting him full throttle, certain now. “Before. You were jealous.”

He lets himself be pleased about being right, even if he hadn’t been exactly right. Close enough, he figures: Keith’s lack of denial is loud in the silence. He steps back and out of reach, and Lance takes one step forward before he remembers himself. He drops back.  

“Goodnight, Lance." 

The door shuts automatically - leaving Lance in shadow, blinking, waiting for the sensors to notice him and light up the room.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I did just update this fic three times in a week. No, I don't know how either. Yes, I am now going to go sleep for the next ten years.

“Good morning!” Lance says, heading into the meeting room, Keith already sat. It’s otherwise empty. Lance throws himself down next to Keith. “Hello! I feel like death, thanks for asking!” 

“Die quieter,” Keith yawns, and slaps Lance’s hand away from the energy drink he’s currently necking. 

“C’mon, dude,” Lance pleads, “I gotta take my meds.” 

It’s a dirty trick and he knows it, and Keith knows it, if the narrowing of his eyes is any indication. But for real, Lance really needs to take his meds. Keith looks at him, looks away, looks back. 

“Alright,” Lance says, leaning back in his chair, readying himself to play his best card. “But don’t forget. We’re assigned together. All day long -”

Keith slams the can down in front of him so fast, Lance is certain Keith is revisiting the highlights remix of being around Lance’s unmedicated ADHD ass. It’s probably in surround sound. 

“Take them.” 

Sweet. 

“With pleasure,” Lance says, tipping the pills out of their container into his palm. The can is still warm from Keith’s grip when he closes his own fingers around it. Lance swigs, swallows. Keeps swallowing. He gets a solid half of the can down his throat before Keith realises his own mistake. 

“Fucker!” Keith hisses, grabbing ineffectually at Lance’s fingers. “Give that back!” He snatches at Lance’s wrist, but his nails are cut too short for him to dig them in. Big mistake. Lance grew up with sisters. This harsh world is all he’s ever known, baby. He cut his _milk teeth_ on this shit. “You don’t even get hangovers, you fuck -” 

Keith changes tactics and jabs Lance in the ribs, hard enough that he drops the can. Keith, who is at least fifty percent freaky Galra reflexes, catches it mid-air and slams the rest of it down right in front of Lance. Lance opens his mouth to reply, but gets hooked on the movement of Keith’s throat. How, when he pulls his lips away from the rim of the can, they’re wet, Keith wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. 

“Uh,” Lance manages. And then, because - okay, he doesn’t know why, he just goes ahead and says it, Lance says, “So, hey. On a scale of, like, one to ten, how serious were you the other night about wanting to fuck?” 

Keith chokes on air. 

“Ten is meant to be very serious,” Lance adds helpfully. “Just so you -”

“Yes, Lance, I can fucking _count to ten_ ,” Keith spits out. His hand is still curled loosely around the can, victory forgotten in favour of staring at Lance like he has no idea what Lance is even thinking.  

He’s mostly thinking about whether Keith bending him over a table thing is, you know, off the table completely. 

“Is the bending me over the table thing off the table completely?” Lance asks, and from the look on Keith’s face, maybe he needs to backtrack with the specific requests right now. And oh, that was a pun. Nice. “Okay, shall I - I’ll -” 

He can _table_ that for discussion later, right? Oh my god. Lance is a _genius._

“I was going to ask how you were feeling,” Keith replies, “But you do not deserve my sympathy.” He starts, stops, starts again. Stops again. Looks at Lance. Lance shrugs at him because hey, he can’t have been the only one up all night thinking about this, right? 

Right?  

“Have you lost your mind?” Keith hisses. 

“Have you lost your memory of, like, the last twelve hours?” 

“No! My mom could walk in  _ at any minute _ , Lance!”  

“Oh. Yeah. Okay, fair. But also, real quick -”

Keith sighs. 

“Really _really_ quick, like, what kind of number are we looking at here? Like, what are we in the ballpark of here?”

“Eleven,” Keith says, without hesitation. Lance’s brain screeches to a halt. When he looks at Keith, really looks this time, Keith only makes eye contact for a brief second and pulls a face at him. 

“What?” Keith whispers - whispers, in a great echoing meeting room, which obviously just means his voice carries better. “What are you making that face for? You asked and I told you. Eleven. The number’s eleven.” 

“I’m making a face?” Lance, against his better judgement, finds himself whispering back. God, this is ridiculous. Keith’s anxiety about Krolia is contagious. Now Lance is worried about Keith’s mom - okay, no, Keith’s mom is pretty scary. That’s a valid fear. “Eleven isn’t even one of the numbers!” 

“You said ten was very serious! So, yeah, I’m picking eleven. Alright? Happy?” 

“Ecstatic,” Lance retorts, on autopilot, only - yeah. Actually. That is - that is pretty accurate. There’s a silence. 

“I didn’t think you’d even remember,” Keith mutters to the far wall. “Of course you remembered.” 

“Did you think I wouldn’t remember you saying you were DTF?” 

“Do not,” Keith says, “Use acronyms. Or I will take it back.” A pause. “It’s ten now.” 

“What?”  

“You heard me.” 

“You said it was eleven!” Lance notices how Keith’s entire body posture has shifted, tensing. The tips of his ears are red, and he’s glaring down at his holo-pad. Hands flat on the table. He looks so like a cat that’s been dropped in a bath that Lance instantly regrets throwing the topic out there like he did. 

“Hey,” Lance says, “Do I sound like I’m being a dick about this? I’m really not trying to be a dick about this.” 

Keith doesn’t reply, makes a show of silently powering up his holo-pad and scrolling through applications, bringing up the minutes from the last meeting. Yep. Lance sounded like he was being a dick about this. 

“You’re really ignoring me,” Lance points out. “You’re really doing that when we’re the only two people in the entire room.” 

Keith gets up and goes over to the side counter without acknowledging Lance. He spends a pointed amount of time selecting a stylus from the box of identical styluses. He doesn’t even pick up another one for Lance. 

“Keith,” Lance tries. Nothing. “Keith. Keith, I wasn’t making fun of you. For real. I wasn’t making fun of you. Sorry.” Keith puts down the stylus. He’s listening. Lance nearly falls over himself trying to babble out an explanation. “I just - I thought if - like, I didn’t know how to bring it up without it sounding like a big deal, you know? Which, you know. It’s kind of a big deal. But I didn’t want you to freak out, because when you freak out you tend to just say no right away. And. I didn’t want you to say no. Also, you know. I don’t work with my mom. I guess that does mean me just -  yeah, that probably does make you uncomfortable.” 

“Yes,” Keith agrees, “It does.”

He’s talking! He’s talking again! Lance suppresses the urge to victory punch the air. It’ll only undo all his hard work just now. 

“If I buy you another one of those -” Lance gestures at the empty can of energy drink. “When we’re on break, can we at least talk about this?” 

“The canteen on this floor doesn’t do the flavour I like.”

“Then,” Lance gives in. He knows he’s being played and he still gives in. Keith’s fighting a smile and he still. Gives. In. “Then I’ll go to the canteen that does have the one you like. Okay? Does that work?”

“It works.” 

After another moment, Keith gets up again, goes back to the side counter, and brings back Lance a stylus. 

“Ten,” he reminds Lance, putting it down, then wavers. “And a half.” 

 

*

 

“Did you know the only canteen that sells pomegranate flavour is up five separate floors from here?” Lance says, panting, bracing his hands on his own thighs. After a moment, he shoves the can out towards Keith, who is leaning casually up against the wall, looking pristine and unbothered. 

“Is it?” he replies, opening the can with a crisp clink. “I’ve never noticed.” 

He holds eye contact with Lance whilst he drinks. His eyes are laughing.  

“Okay, whatever, show of dominance acknowledged. Now can we talk?”  

“Did you run all the way up there?” Keith takes another sip, gaze trained on him. 

“I.....yes?” 

“Oh,” Keith shrugs. “There’s an elevator.” 

“There’s a - you have got to be kidding me.” Lance pauses, realising something, “Do you even like pomegranate flavour?” 

“Not really.” Keith finishes the drink. Crushes the can in one fist casually. Shrugs at Lance’s aghast expression. “So, Mom says the Ministers are in deadlock about the trial.” 

“They are?” Christ, Lance hasn’t even been thinking about the trial. Lance  _ should  _ be thinking about the trial. “I thought they said the vote was going to be in favour?”

“They are in favour, apparently. But it turns out more people are disagreeing with the trial by combat than we thought. They’re just doing it in private chambers, where we can’t see. Well, where you can’t see.”

“What does it matter what I see? Oh, wait,” Lance realises, “It’s because I’m human, isn’t it?”

Keith nods.  

“You’re a human, ranking representative of the Garrison, and the Blue Paladin. If they’re making you go through a trial by combat, they have to be able to answer for it later if -”

“If it goes sideways,” Lance says, feeling oddly calm given he’s discussing the prospect of his own death. But, what do you know? That’s the thing with life or death scenarios. They stay awful and get boring. “Wait, _is_ it to the death?” 

“It’s not decided yet,” Keith says, but he looks unsure. And then they get called away, to do something, something that’s unimportant, and Lance knew the energy drink-meds combo was a killer in the making, but fuck. He’s so jittery he’s halfway to climbing out of his own skin, and it’s taking everything he has to sit still, and he’s only getting about a third of what’s being said in terms of translating it from the separate words into meaning. 

So it’s only later, flat on his back in his borrowed quarters, idly thinking about whether Keith has a decent bed in that _ nice _ nice apartment, that Lance realises they never did really talk about it. 

 

*

 

Despite everything, Lance isn’t sure how they ended up here. Here’s the thing: Lance should have thought this through. Or, you know, gone with the sensible conclusion when he thought it through. The facts are these: he’s twenty-four in less than a week, fresh out of his first real relationship, not so much broken-hearted as recovering from having had his chest sandblasted open. He’s had one girlfriend and had sex with one person. You do the math. And honestly, it was great. It was overwhelming and terrifying and turned him inside out, like something siphoned right off the cinema reel: Allura kneeling naked on his bed in the barracks, glowing, and Lance in danger of coughing up his own damn heart for her. Even when they were fighting, or exhausted, or worn down by everything, they’d been able to light each other up from the inside, been able to remind each other it was sometimes good to be in a body. 

Lance can’t remember the last time he had sex with Allura, but he thinks it must have been about two months before she sat him down. He remembers it was in the dark, and he couldn’t see her face. He’d thought he knew her enough. He thought the fact he could hear her, that he’d learnt her before, meant that he couldn’t be blinded. 

Turns out he could be. Turns out it was easy as them both closing their eyes. 

So he’s twenty-four in five days, and instead of moving onto a distraction, someone who’s never known him, which would be easy - it’s not so devastating to disappoint a stranger - he’s falling back into going after someone who’s known him since he was seventeen. It’s not the best kind of habit. It’s not a good look on him.  

He’s still stood in Keith’s bedroom anyway, staring at Keith’s kiss-swollen mouth, feeling stung, feeling stupid. In the end, they didn’t talk about it. Lance had been stood outside Keith’s apartment door, chatting shit, idling, both of them knowing why, and Keith had - said something, rolled his eyes, and Lance had looked at the fine bones of Keith’s face, all porcelain and ferocity, and snapped. Swooped in, pressed him back against the wall. 

“Lance,” Keith had said. 

“I thought about it,” Lance tells him. It’s a bad decision. It’s a bad decision. It’s a bad decision. “Let’s go.” 

And Keith had tumbled him through the door just like that. 

“Can I -” Lance motions towards Keith’s jacket now. They’re in Keith’s bedroom, which is pristine and almost empty, a wardrobe door left open, spilling cherry leather, the long sleeve of a navy sweater unfurling like a tongue. 

Lance is there, already out of his clothes, got down to his boxers himself like that was a way to get ahead of his own fears - because Lance can feel all his own second guesses catching up with them, but it’s cool. It’s all cool. He’s just got to outrace them. He barely resists the urge to cross his arms across his bare chest, defensive. Keith’s eyes, hot on his skin, aren’t helping. 

“Sure,” Keith replies, wetting his lips, letting his hands fall away from the zipper. And Lance figures he’s got this, you know. No offence, but after having to learn his way around ballgowns and bras and the pocketless conspiracy of women’s fashion, he’s got this. And Keith might dress like someone dropped him into a Berlin fetish club - and then shook him around in there a bit for good measure - but that’s beside the point. 

It’s a jacket. He can manage a fucking jacket. Only when Lance reaches out, there’s enough space left between them that - so Lance’s hands are shaking, which, no big deal, you know? But there’s enough distance between him and Keith that he knows Keith just saw that too, Keith’s eyes flashing up towards his and honestly Lance just pulls away on instinct, courage gone. 

“Actually, can you -” 

Keith takes hold of his wrist and pulls Lance forward, opens his mouth around Lance’s fingers and sucks. Lance’s whole world disintegrates right then and there. 

“Fuck,” Lance manages eloquently. The word is choked out of him. Keith pulls off and smirks. 

“See,” Keith says, “You can say it.” And Keith shrugs his own jacket off, letting it hit the ground in a clink of metal fastenings and weight. 

Okay. Okay. Okay. This is fine. 

"See," Lance replies, "I totally get you were trying to make a joke there, but like, I'm.....yeah, I've got nothing."

“Easier than I expected, but okay,” Keith says, and how the fuck is he keeping his voice so even? He gestures at his shirt. “Do you want to take this off me, or should I?”

“Actually,” Lance replies, “What I think I want is to sit down. Right now. You go ahead, I’m just gonna - you know. Sit here.”  

He sits down on the bed hard, can’t help it. It’s like his legs have been knocked out from under him. Keith doesn’t sleep in this bed, Lance decides. There’s barely a crease in the fabric. 

“Lance,” Keith says, pausing, head tilted. “Are you - are you okay?” 

God  _ damn _ it. 

“What makes you think I’m not okay?”

“You can’t see what your face is doing,” Keith counters, “I can.”

“I am -” Lance sneaks another glance at Keith’s expression. Shit. Lying’s out of the question then. “I have possibly been more okay previously than I am at this exact moment?”

“So, that’s a no, then.” 

“Are you going to kick me out if I say no?” Lance draws his knees up to his own chest and looks at the far wall. 

“Obviously I’m not going to kick you out if you say no,” Keith says. “Oh my God, Lance, what kind of - I’m not going to kick you out.” He pauses, looking worried. “What made you think I would kick you out?”

“I don’t know!” 

“Okay, so, like - is this about the fact you haven’t done this before -”

“So, actually,” Lance interrupts, aware his voice is oddly high-pitched and he’s still not looking at Keith. “I’m just going to point out, like, you don’t know that and -”

“Lance,” is all Keith says. “You haven’t, though. Have you?” 

Lance stays mutinously silent. 

“Lance,” Keith pushes. “I don’t care, alright? But you clearly seem to care, because you keep looking at me like a startled fucking woodland creature. Or like you’re going to punch me in the dick on reflex.”

“It’d only be a reflex,” Lance mutters. 

“That’s....not as reassuring as you think it is.” 

“What, you’d rather I punched you in the dick on purpose? Damn, Keith, I feel like that’s a whole separate conversation -”

“Actually, I’d just rather you’d say if you don’t want to do this, okay?” Keith sighs and tips backwards on the bed, rubs his hands over his own face. “I don’t want to if you don’t, you know?” 

“I didn’t say I didn’t want to do this,” Lance says, his voice very small. He eyes the jacket on the floor longingly, senses Keith watching him. “Can I - can I borrow that?” He points to the jacket, glances to Keith. There’s a brief, devastating moment of eye contact, and Lance feels so seen the feeling to flee rushes up through him all over again. Keith nods. 

“Go ahead.” 

He scrambles up and pulls it on. The warmth of it, stolen from Keith’s body heat, makes him feel safer. Less exposed. There’s a moment, midway through him zipping it up, where he looks up and actually sees Keith’s face and stops, hand frozen on the zipper. Lance realises he’s smiling. Keith clears his throat. It’s loud in the sudden quiet. 

“Oh,” Lance says, “Oh, so _this_ is what you’re into.”

“Shut up,” Keith says, but doesn’t deny it. Lance puts a hand on his hip and bats his eyelashes, pushing through how ridiculous he feels, stood there posing in his boxers and Keith’s jacket. 

“I should’ve known. Go on,” he says, playing it up. “Tell me I’m pretty -”

“Yeah, you look good,” Keith tells him - gives in to him instantly, no hesitation. His eyes are almost all pupil.  Lance takes him in, splayed out across the covers, dark-eyed and waiting. 

“Yeah,” Lance says. He swallows. “Yeah. You too.” For another moment, they just stand there, staring at each other mutely, until Lance makes a decision: “Okay, move up, I’m coming over there.” 

Keith pushes himself up on his arms, watching Lance, who almost trips but recovers. Keith opens his mouth, presumably to say something, but that’s around the same time Lance climbs onto the bed. 

“Not a word,” Lance says, moving towards him, “I swear to you, Keith, if you open your mouth right now -” 

Keith, surprisingly, shuts his mouth. 

_ Just - just sit down,  _ Lance thinks,  _ it’s fine,  _ and straddles Keith. Keith lets out a breath, hands reaching up to steady Lance around his waist when he wobbles. 

“Hey,” Lance says. 

“Hey,” Keith replies, a little softer, blinking up at him. “Did you know you have freckles?” 

Lance blinks back at him, trying to concentrate. He’s very aware of how Keith’s hands are tucked just under the hem of his own jacket, against Lance’s bare skin, fingertips digging into the elastic of Lance’s boxers. It’s kind of this whole thing. 

“Yes?” he echoes, confused and self-conscious, but Keith just smiles at him, takes one hand away from Lance’s waist - which is a mistake, Lance decides, but before he can make Keith put it back Keith cups Lance’s jaw in his hand and runs his thumb along the line of Lance’s cheekbone and that’s - 

That’s an okay substitute. Lance closes his eyes. 

“Right here,” Keith continues, voice barely above a whisper. 

“Yeah,” Lance replies, “I do - I look at my own face, Keith. You know. Mirrors, shiny surfaces, windows.” Keith’s hand slides around and into Lance’s hair, and that  _ should not feel so good. _ “Why,” Lance keeps talking, because he wasn’t raised a fucking quitter, thanks very much, “You a fan or something?” 

“Or something,” Keith says. He’s so close that Lance can feel his breath against his own mouth, can feel his lower back beginning to prickle with sweat. “So, did you have, like, a particular plan when for when you got up here, or are you just -”

“Winging it? Pretty much,” Lance says, “So don’t remind me, I’ll get, I don’t know, stage fright again.” He’s named it now, it’s out there in the room with them. That's gotta count for something, right? Lance is nearly twenty-four years old and has had sex with precisely one other person his whole life, and never with another man. After he does this, that's some kind of line in the sand broken, an act he can't take back, and it shouldn't matter, but it does. And it's bullshit to care about that, but he does. And already he can feel the curl of nerves growing insistent in his stomach again, rising up to his throat. “Actually, nope, too late, spoke too soon, it’s definitely happening again, so if you have any ideas you wanna throw out there that would be  -”

“Okay, yeah, I can work with that,” Keith says, and kisses him, and Lance’s brain goes silent for a solid five minutes after that, narrowing to pinpoints: Keith’s mouth, Keith’s tongue, Keith biting his lip for a second, making Lance flinch and make a weird gasping sound because what the fuck what the fuck  _ what the absolute fuck _ \- 

Like he knew he liked that, right, but he didn’t expect - 

“No good?” Keith asks, pulling back. He’s red-lipped and his hair is a mess and Lance kind of wants to throw something because how dare he be - 

“Are you  _ kidding me _ ,” Lance says, “Do that again or I will punch you in the dick _ for real _ ,” and Keith laughs, only when they’re so close and he laughs they rub up against each other through their clothes and Keith stops laughing and moans against his shoulder. 

All in all, it’s going pretty well, but then Keith sticks both his hands up his jacket, far enough that the tips of his fingers brush the scarring across Lance’s shoulder blades. It's all left over from being seventeen and throwing himself in front of an explosion, remnants of something that ran so deep under his skin the healing pod couldn't get all the memory out. And this time when he flinches, it’s not so good. He pulls back. 

“Shit, sorry,” Keith says, apologetic, and the apology is what pisses Lance off. “Sorry, I wasn’t - paying attention - is that, like, does that feel bad or something -”

“No? I don’t think so?” 

Keith waits, frowning.

“Define bad,” Lance tries. 

“As in, not good?” 

“No, it’s just,” Lance shrugs helplessly, wanting to rewind the expression in Keith’s eyes back about thirty seconds, “It’s just - like -” 

Here’s the thing: the scar tissue that spans Lance’s back is as much a part of him as his eyes, at this point. It just is. It’s not something he thinks about until something like this happens, and the look on people’s faces tell him it’s not that normal, after all. That maybe he’s just lying to himself by thinking it’s normal. That actually he’s secretly some kind of mutant, made up of too many nerves and patches of numbness, and he’s going to keep getting caught out for daring to feel good in a body that isn’t supposed to be good. That it’s stupid of him, to make a home out of an imperfect house - when it’s hard to be at war with the only body you’ve ever known, the body that’s kept you alive. 

It’s hard to live like that, and Lance hadn’t wanted to even try. 

“Okay, if you make this into a thing,” Lance threatens. He sits up, which shifts his weight. Keith’s gaze goes all hazy for a second, but then he blinks it away. He’s trying so hard to remain focused that it’s almost sweet, but all the sympathy is still there in his eyes and it’s sticking in Lance’s throat, making it hard to swallow. “I will get up and leave, so, yeah, don’t test me on this. I am not joking. I will get up and -”

“Lance, I’ve seen your back before. You know, in the showers -”

“Not the same thing and you know it, dude.” 

The fact Keith isn’t sniping at him for saying _ dude _ gets to him even more. Lance unzips the jacket, movements jerky with annoyance, goes to fling it on the floor before pausing. It’s not his. 

“So, where - where should I put this?” he asks. 

Keith sits up again, takes it out of his hands, and throws it over Lance’s shoulder. Fucking drama queen. 

“Okay so -” Lance gets up out of Keith’s lap, standing, and yep, Keith can see exactly how turned on he is, great, wonderful. He turns, reaches around, fingers splayed out across his own scar. He recites all the names in his head - hypotrophic, scar contractions, fibrous nerves, tissue hypoxia - and then immediately throws all of those out of the window, never mind, moving on - “So, like, the centre? Don’t bother. Nerves are pretty much dead there, yeah? Pressure, maybe, but it’s not, it’s never done much for me, so.” When he dares a look over his shoulder, Keith has this weird stunned look on his face, eyes all over the place. “Dude, pay attention,” Lance snaps, turning back.  

“Yeah, okay,” Keith says, and fuck, his voice is like gravel. “Sorry, yeah, keep going.” 

“So, centre of it is like, whatever, but as it gets towards the edges, that’s okay. Only don’t, like - light touches are going to hurt like a bitch. I don’t know why. It’s just going to. If you’re going to, you know, touch me there -” God, this is terrible, do people really go through this every time they sleep with someone, this is  _ exhausting _ , “You’ve gotta commit, okay? Go big or go home.” 

“Okay,” Keith says, “Yeah. I got it.” 

“You sure you’ve got it?”

“Yeah! I’m sure.” 

Lance turns back around. Lecture over. 

“Sorry,” he says, awkward, bravado dissolving. He resists the urge to cross his arms again. “Couldn’t think of a way to make that one sound, I don’t know, sexy or whatever. Also, I shouldn’t have said the word sexy, I feel like the second you have to say it it’s already not, you feel me?” 

“It’s fine,” Keith replies. “You’re topless. That’s doing it for me. Also, did you know you have dimples, like, right above your ass?” 

“Why,” Lance answers, “Would I have noticed that?” 

“I don’t know, dude,” Keith says, “Maybe you -” 

And then he snaps his mouth shut so goddamn fast, but it’s too late. Keith Kogane just called him _dude_ , and he did it when they’re like _this_. Hypocrisy’s a bitch. Lance knows the smirk on his face must be terrible to behold. 

“This is all your fault,” Keith decides, scowling, “It’s all your fault, Lance. I’m not being held responsible for that.” 

“You mean for the fact you just called me dude? Admit it. It’s over, Keith. I’ve carved it into my brain for eternity.” 

“Lance.” 

“Wow, can’t believe you waited until I was nearly naked to whip that one out. And I thought I was killing the mood.” 

“ _ Lance _ ,” Keith says again, and grabs him by his hips, pulling him forward. 

“Hey,” Lance manages, between kisses, “Hey, is the taking your shirt off thing still an option?” 

He’s really hoping it’s still an option. 

“Yes,” Keith says against his mouth.

“Oh, damn,” Lance says, when he manages to wrestle Keith out of his shirt. Only it feels like, on consideration, it’s something he should say again. “Oh,  _ damn, _ ” he repeats. 

Keith looks at him, hair gone staticky, and rolls his eyes. He can’t stop the twist to his mouth though, the slight hunch of his shoulders, caught somewhere between self-consciousness and pleasure. 

“What? You’re hot,” Lance says, running the backs of his fingers down the centre of Keith’s chest. The flush on Keith’s face is spilling all down his throat, down across his chest. Lance traces the path of it back up again, then down again, the heat of Keith’s skin and the fast stutter of his heart. It’s weirdly mesmerising. “Wow, you’re also really red. Like, really.” 

“Are you going to talk the _ whole time, _ ” Keith asks. 

“Don’t ask stupid questions. You _ know _ I am.” 

He leans down and kisses the side of Keith’s throat. Keith claps a hand over his own mouth, hips jerking upwards, then drags his arm up over his face, covering his eyes. 

“You doing okay in there, pal?” 

“Sure. Great. Never been better.” Keith grits out. “Can you stop with the names.”

“What’s wrong, babe? Don’t like -” Lance freezes, because the timing of Keith’s hips was definitely - 

“Oh,” Lance realises. “It’s not that you don’t like it.” 

“It’s  _ liking-specific _ ,” Keith corrects him, arm still over his eyes. 

“Oh my god,” Lance says, “This is going to be so much  _ fun _ .” Keith makes a disgruntled noise, so Lance gets in real close, and how dare he be so pretty? Who gave him the right, huh? “Keith, you never told me this was going to be  _ fun _ .” 

“I literally was trying to check you were going to have fun,” Keith bitches at him. It would be a lot more impressive if he didn’t sound so breathless, and if he didn’t have an iron grip on Lance’s bicep. God, that’s going to bruise. Amazing. “I literally tried to check  _ multiple times _ -” 

Lance notices Keith isn’t trying to touch his upper back and that’s - that’s okay for now, actually. It could throw him off too much, if Keith does it wrong, and this is already like reciting the alphabet backwards, something Lance should know made unfamiliar. Meanwhile, Keith wraps his legs around Lance’s waist mid-metaphor, pulls Lance down by his shoulder, and flips them. 

Lance lands on his back, hard, looks up to see Keith hunched over him, pressing down between his legs, and makes a noise like he’s dying. It’s loud, so loud that Lance considers actually dying to get away from his own big mouth. 

“So,” Lance says after a startled silence, Keith staring down at him, wide-eyed, “That was exactly as hot as I thought it might be. That’s good news.”  

Keith laughs down at him - and it does the same amazing thing as always to his eyes, lighting them up like a candle in a very dark and silent room, glowing. Only, Lance could tell him that, he realises, as he arches upwards. He could absolutely tell Keith that. If he wanted. 

“Keith,” Lance says. It takes him a second to get back on track, because there’s that thing going on where he’s started saying Keith’s name and keeps forgetting he should actually stop saying it sometime soon. “Keith, Keith. Keith, did I ever tell you -” 

But then his phone’s ringtone blares into life. And Lance recognises it, because he’d set it to be specific, separate and distinct from his usual phone’s ringtone, because he knew he could and would sleep through his usual one. It’s a way to figure out when to answer, and it works on him like a summons. He’s moving without even thinking twice, his brain sliding down into various compartments and locking into place like the mechanisms of a vault. 

“Keith,” he says, curling a hand around Keith’s shoulder and pushing, “Keith, get off. I have to take this.” Keith isn’t listening, turns to catch Lance’s mouth in a kiss. Lance leans away. “Keith, seriously. I have to answer my phone.” 

The words sink deep enough into Keith’s brain to hook in: he pushes himself up on his forearms and looks at Lance, mouth slick and confused. He’s so warm. Lance resists the urge to pull him back down. 

“Lance,” he says, “What’s wrong?” 

“Nothing’s wrong,” Lance says, aware of how his heart is starting up too fast again, aware of how his voice is stretching thin, going frantic, “It’s - it’s fine, I just - I really have to take this call.” He pushes at Keith’s shoulder again. “You have to let me up, okay?” 

It’s already been ringing too long. Lance usually picks up in the first ten. He can feel every ring going past ten like a kick to the chest, like his own ribs contracting inwards. 

Keith takes one look at his face and silently moves. The fact he doesn’t even try to say anything somehow makes it worse, because that means he can tell. Lance doesn’t even have time to say thank you, or apologise, or do something to fix it the wavering line of Keith’s mouth. He throws himself across the room and snatches up the phone, aware he’s shaking, and badly. He doesn’t even try and leave just yet, hits the right icon on the screen and mashes it against his ear. 

“Mama,” he says, instantly, the words falling all over themselves trying to get out of his mouth, “Mama, it’s okay, it’s okay, I’m here, I’m fine, I’m fine -”  

She’s already crying. It’s quiet, but Lance can hear it in how her breathing’s all wrong. These are the worst calls, when he picks up and it’s like he’s already failed her. And he’s abruptly, stupidly angry at himself - for not being faster, for not shoving Keith away harder, for not having kept his phone on him. For how he doesn’t want to be on this line right now. How he doesn’t want to do this anymore. How he wants to be able to kiss a boy and leave his damn phone in the other room sometimes and it not be like this. But Lance made his bed seven years ago when he laid eyes on the Blue Lion and answered the tug in his gut, and now he’s got to lie in it.  

He saved the world. He saved the whole universe. And in doing so, he broke something in his own mother. All those long nights with the unknowing unspooling, gnawing, looping over and over on themselves - it broke something in her. All those milk cartons and appeals to the public and the constant filing for freedom of information from the Garrison, only to be told they hadn’t requested the right fucking form, all the things they never told him and he pieced together later. All the times the police told them they had to pick a photo of him in his Garrison uniform. Pick one of him smiling, they said. Pick one of him looking respectable, they said. Pick one that doesn’t make them think he’s a criminal, they never said but everyone could translate. All the vigils at his grandparents’ church and all the Masses they said and the constant dental swabs, his siblings opening their mouths over and over to check their spit against some newly-found body abandoned in the desert - 

And Lance is blame. And what kind of kid was he? What kind of kid did that make him? What kind of kid did all that, and wasn’t so damn grateful to still have a fucking mother who loved him more than anything that he was mad when she called in the middle of the night, frightened out of dreams where he came home in a casket? It’s ten fucking rings. Lance can kill a man in the space of five. He can kill three. What’s ten rings of a phone, really? 

So he does what he does best, which is face his own mistakes. He listens to his mother cry, a sound that’s one of the most terrifying he’s ever heard, and he says the same things he always says: _ I know, Mama. It was just a dream. I’m still here. I’m safe. I’m okay. It’s alright, it’s okay. It’s alright. It’s me, Mama. I came home, remember? You know I always come home. I know. I know. Shhh. I love you.  _

He sees Keith moving out of the corner of his eye and tenses, pivoting on his heel, afraid of what he’s going to see but unable to catch himself in time to stand still, and Keith is - 

And there it is, in his eyes: a kind of terrible understanding. Lance immediately looks away. He closes his eyes, even, concentrates on how Mama’s breathing is slowing, evening out. 

“Go back to sleep, Mama,” he tells her, “Is anyone else home tonight?” 

“Yes,” she says. “Helena’s over.”

Keith moves in front of him: Lance can feel it without even opening his eyes. When he does, glare already settled in place, Keith is stood there, holding out Lance’s sweatpants. He offers them to him. 

It’s a ridiculous gesture. Lance can’t think about it too much or else he’ll start crying, and he’s already embarrassed himself enough tonight. Keith offers them to him again, and they have a conversation with their eyes for a minute.  _ I’m busy, _ Lance mouths.  _ I know,  _ Keith mouths back.  _ You’re cold. _

“Lance?” 

“I’m here,” he says, quickly. “Is she awake? Helena?” 

“It’s late. I don’t want to bother her. I’ve already had you up and out of bed, haven’t I?”

Keith’s right. Lance is cold. He had barely noticed. He gives in, and reaches out for the sweatpants, tugs them out of Keith’s hands and starts to try and put them on one-handed. It’s unsteady. Keith grabs hold of Lance’s wrist and pulls his hand to rest on Keith’s shoulder. It takes Lance a second to follow, mind split against two conversations at once. 

“She’ll understand. Go wake her up, okay?” And he leans his weight on Keith, carefully, more and more. Keith takes it, eyes steady, and Lance finally manages to pull up the waistband of his sweatpants. Instantly, he’s warmer. “Ask her if she’ll mind sitting up with you for a while. She won’t mind. Drink something, okay?”  

_ Thank you, _ Lance brings himself to mouth. Keith nods, snags up his own t-shirt, and slips out of his own bedroom like - 

Like he didn’t have any right to be there in the first place. 

“And then go back to sleep. Promise me, Mama. Promise me you’ll do everything I just said to you.”

“I promise,” Mama replies. She sounds so small. “I’m sorry, Leandro.” 

“Don’t be sorry,” Lance tells her, “I love you. We’re okay. Go to sleep.” 

 

*

 

Five minutes later, Keith opens the door, just a sliver. It spills light onto the bed. Lance, sat on the floor, leaning up against it, looks up at him. 

“I’m fine,” Lance says. It’s instant and defensive. 

“Cool,” Keith replies, “Didn’t ask. Do you want anything?” 

“Not in the mood right now, sorry,” Lance manages, and Keith pulls a face. 

“Oh my god, Lance, not like - I mean, like, can I get you anything?” 

Lance thinks it over for a minute, chewing his lip. 

“I’m sorry,” Keith blurts out whilst he’s thinking, “I used to - I always make jokes about you being glued to your phone and shit. I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“Don’t apologise,” Lance says, “That’s something I want, okay? I really can’t deal with you apologising as well.” 

Keith nods. Repeats himself: 

“Can I - can’t I do something?” Lance hesitates. “Lance. I’m asking you.”  

“Can you - can you leave me alone?” Lance says. “I know this probably sounds like, really fucking weird, and it’s your apartment, and I don’t -”

“I can take a walk around the building,” Keith says immediately, “Just let me grab my jacket.” After he does, he stands there, dawdling, all bleeding heart eyes and Lance can’t  _ stand _ it. “Are you sure you -”

“Yeah. Just leave me alone.” 

“I don’t have any neighbours right now,” Keith says softly, “They’re all out on missions. So make as much noise as you want.” 

Then, he shuts the door. 

 

*

 

Keith waits a whole hour and a half of Earth time before heading back. Lance hears the faint click of the door lock deactivating, turns halfway to face him and thinks better of it. Even though it’s okay. Even though he washed his face with cold water. Even though Keith knows, and it’s because he knows that Lance stays where he is - knees slid back up to his chest, looking out of Keith’s ridiculous, beautiful apartment windows. Even the damn carpet under his hands is soft.  

“Lance?” Keith calls out. Lance can hear the sounds of him: here, he’s sitting down on a chair. Here, he’s unzipping his boots. There’s two distinct sounds of him dropping them by the door. All the time, Lance thinks about not replying. About what he said to Shiro back on Earth:  _ anywhere but here.  _

If it’s always  _ anywhere but here  _ \- if the only constant factor to  _ here _ is Lance himself - then - 

“Over here,” he finally gives in. Because that’s the thing about here. Keith’s here, too. 

There’s all that green from the botany preserve, glittering in the dissipating night, itching at the corner of Lance’s eyes. The waning moon silhouetting Keith in purple as he sits down next to Lance, cross-legged. He’s still wearing his jacket, and he’s unbearably good-looking, which is something Lance knows about Keith, but would like to unknow right now for the sake of his own vanity. He knows he looks drawn and raw. 

“It’s beautiful, huh,” Lance mutters, gesturing with one hand out the window. The way Keith’s placed himself down, his hand is so close to Lance’s. 

“The sofa’s right there, you know,” Keith replies. 

“The sofa’s yours,” is what Lance tells him. Keith snorts. 

“Yeah, ‘cause the apartment’s mine.” 

Lance doesn’t know how to say that the sofa feels more like Keith’s bed than the huge, empty, grey sea of Keith’s actual bed in his actual bedroom. That he knows Keith sleeps out here, facing that great shimmering green all night. That the last thing he sees before he sleeps is the planet made by his mother who loves him, and the beckoning sky beyond. 

That Lance was only in Keith’s shack out in the desert one time, but that he noticed the blankets thrown over the sofa in there, just the same, how they faced his conspiracy board so even Keith’s own dreams would be laced together with the red thread, the tension of it holding him together. Keith’s like that. He always faces things head-on. Even when it might be better not to. Even when it would be easier to look the other way. 

And opening up wounds might make them symmetrical, sure. But Lance’s fascination has always been in how unlike each other they both are, just one step too removed from the sphere of each other’s experience but still somehow with enough overlap to still be in sight of each other. 

“So,” Keith says into the semi-darkness, “I mean, I’m not sure -” He stops, starts again. “So, like, I - do you like Kosmo?” 

“........Yes?” Lance says, after a pause. “Yes, I like your dog, Keith.”

“He’s a wolf,” Keith corrects absently, “And look, don’t pull that face, I’m going somewhere with this, okay? I - Shiro’s like, been sending me videos. Of Kosmo, yeah? And they’re pretty cute. And I don’t know, they might make you feel less -”

“Less?”

“Less shit,” Keith replies. 

“Do I look that bad?”

“You don’t look -” Keith’s struggling here, panic obvious in his face. Oh, he doesn’t want to insult Lance. He’s acting like he’s stepping on glass. 

“Is that what you do?” Lance interrupts him. “When it gets bad?” 

Keith looks at him out of the corner of his eyes. Lance knows he caught the difference in what Lance was saying. When it gets bad, not if. Eventually, he nods. 

Lance remembers, all of a sudden: Keith is like his mother. Keith knows what it is to be left behind. What must he think of Lance? He almost thinks of asking, right there and then - asking Keith if he forgave Krolia for leaving him, if the rational part of your brain that knows sometimes the choices we make are the only ones we’re left with overrides the rest of it. But then again, Krolia built him a planet. That’s one hell of an apology. But then again - Does he think Lance’s family can - 

Lance is tired of living in his own feelings and his own suspicions and the terror of his own decisions. So he makes one. 

“Thank you,” Lance says, “For trying,” and kisses Keith again. He feels Keith open his mouth against his, as though to reply, and kisses him harder, over and over, going for broke. He can tell when Keith gets it, gets what Lance is trying to do - get out of his head with him - because that’s when Keith starts trying to fight out of his own jacket. 

“Stop,” Lance tells him, “I want to take your clothes off,” and this time, it doesn’t matter that Keith can see his hands shaking, somehow. It’s not as embarrassing as literally everything else Keith has seen of him. 

This time, Lance notices it’s not just him. That maybe Keith is just as afraid. That maybe Keith is just as afraid, and wound up, and fucked up - 

This time, it’s better, less stilted. When Keith gets his hands under Lance’s shirt, gets it off him, his hands don’t pause on Lance’s back once, one hand splayed against his shoulder blade, his thumb rubbing back and forth across the boundary between the scar tissue and the rest of Lance’s skin. On again, off again. Unhesitating. Searing in the spaces it takes Lance to catch his breath. There’s a moment, after the first roll of Lance’s hips down, where they both look at each other, Keith breathing hard through his mouth, and Lance swears he can see his own shock in Keith’s eyes, pupils blown wide and mouth open, because holy shit -  

“That was -” Lance says. His voice falls out of him, hoarse and dark and unfamiliar. “Better, right?” 

“Again,” Keith tells him, and it’s an order, it’s the same voice he uses to give orders and Lance is hardwired to listen to it, sure, but somehow it lights everything up in Lance’s head, makes the feeling sharper. 

“Working for you?” Keith asks, smiling against Lance’s throat. 

“I don’t know,” Lance retorts, “You doing okay there, _baby?_ ” and watches Keith lose at least half of his mind right there and then. 

Lance doesn’t last long after that. Keith’s hair spilling out against the carpet, silvering in the light, caught in a space between night and day; Keith, on his back for Lance, throat bared in the apartment he let Lance into and left Lance alone in like it was nothing.   

It wasn’t nothing. It’s too much. It’s enough. 

It ruins him. 

It’s okay, because Keith doesn’t even last as long as him. 

“Ha,” Lance says, when he gets enough breath back. “I win.”

“Get out of my apartment,” Keith replies, without even trying to act like he means it. 

And then there’s this, too: Lance, remember as his skin cools that this is weird, that he’s meant to be finding the whole thing weird. Is it weird he’s not finding this weird? Okay, cool, now he’s finding it weird. Just took a second for everything to catch up, there. 

“Stop thinking,” Keith mutters, “I can hear it from over here,” and stands up, picks up the bedding from the sofa and drops it down on the floor just next to Lance. 

“There isn’t room for both of us on the sofa.” He sounds apologetic. “Unless like - I figured you might not want to be in the bedroom because -” He pauses, like mentioning Lance’s earlier breakdown in there is in bad taste. Clearly, Hunk’s social skills hadn’t stretched to that. “You know, maybe - do you want a shower? I can make us coffee?”

“It’s way too early for coffee,” Lance points out. Keith bites down on his lip and nods, frowning. 

“I guess?” 

He’s clearly not great at this, or maybe it’s just the residual evening that’s making this awkward now.  

“Okay, but I can’t stay,” Lance starts, sitting up and facing Keith, the drag of the carpet against his skin. Everything is going to be sore as a bitch tomorrow. Whose idea was this? “She might -”

There’s no nice way to say it. 

“Mama might call again. Sometimes it’s like that.” 

Sometimes it’s like a switch has been flipped, some kind of tripwire in her brain, and it’ll stutter, on-off-on-again all night. Like mother, like son.

“Get your phone then,” Keith replies, sounding both reasonable and insane, which, okay, yeah, par for the course, “There’s a charging port right next to your arm. Leave it on. I don’t care.” 

So Lance goes and gets his phone on autopilot, even though watching his hands plug it in is like having some kind of out of body experience. He washes in the sink, staring at his own reflection in the mirror, eyes huge in his face, and very determinedly does not think about anything other than the water temperature. 

_ It’s fine, _ he tells himself,  _ Keith said he doesn’t care.  _

When he gets out of there, Lance realises he’s still naked, and there’s a glass of water on a side table, and Keith looking at him expectantly. It’s so clumsy, all of this, all this attempt at care-taking, that Lance would laugh if he didn’t think it would hurt Keith’s feelings. 

“Yeah,” Lance says, “I’m gonna put some clothes on.” Clothes have to make this less - less what it feels like. Right? 

“Good idea,” Keith replies immediately, and the speed at which he tugs on his shirt and boxers makes Lance wonder if he was just -

Waiting around, so Lance wouldn’t be the only one naked. The only one vulnerable. Wow, is Lance really that obvious? Wow, is Keith really that weird? 

Keith’s voice is still hoarse, which Lance notices and instantly wishes he hadn’t noticed when they’re both still semi-naked and in each other’s proximity. So Lance drinks half the damn water and Keith watches him with bizarrely sincere eyes.

He’s trying very hard not to think about James Griffin. It’s weird, Lance thinks, putting the glass down. Considering, you know, James, Keith seems pretty rusty at this. But then again, maybe Lance’s whole deal is contagious. Or maybe Keith’s just like that. The water’s a wild touch, though. 

“You don’t have anything that’s not coffee, do you,” Lance finally realises. 

“Wrong,” Keith replies, “I don’t have anything that’s not caffeinated,” and Lance lets out a laugh.  

“God, how do you live like that?” 

He looks up to see Keith smiling at him. Lance’s voice dries up. 

“I get by,” Keith says. 


	7. Chapter 7

When Lance wakes up, it’s to daylight right in his eyes, rather than the careful light-controlled semi-darkness of his own bunk. He’s groggy and on edge with the awareness that he’s somehow out of place. It takes him a few moments to connect the dots, snapping from sleep to alertness in a couple of breaths. He’s in what passes for Keith’s bed in what passes as Keith’s home planet, with half his face mashed into Keith’s spare pillow and his hand outstretched and resting against the floor that’s given him a bitch of a carpet burn, patches of it just below his knees. And then he remembers what got him here, with a dull ache in his lower back and that strange tender feeling along his throat, sense-memory prickling along his skin.

Keith’s nowhere to be seen.

Shit. No. That’s - that’s fine, Lance decides. That’s fine. It’s fine. Keith can be wherever he wants. When he reaches for his phone automatically, he finds a message from Keith at the top of his notifications, just above one from Mama. His thumb hovers, caught between, and in the end he presses down on Keith’s first, giving in. It feels like a betrayal in miniature, blown up under the microscopic lens of all Lance’s bad choices.

 

_shiro called. sorry. you need anything from the vending machine_

 

_that was half a joke so_

 

_srsly do u want anything_

 

Lance snorts, despite himself. It helps settle the feeling in his chest - the one that tells him there’s some kind of reckoning due, that every kiss Keith laid on him last night opened up some kind of debt. Lance’s credit history is shit - disappearing off-planet regularly kind of does that. It’s why it’s not actually that inaccurate a metaphor. No, fuck this. It’s at least two hours too early for metaphors, Lance decides, checking Mama’s text fast, ignoring the fact he’s got twenty minutes on the clock before he’s due to show his face somewhere to do - something. It’s not very interesting.

 

_I’m sorry again. r u ok???_

 

Lance grimaces. He opens reply, taps out some quick reassurance. Hitting send is like pressing down on a bruise. He gets up to go take a shower, and he catches his own reflection in the window, wide-eyed, tired-eyed, somehow startled. When he turns away, pulling Keith’s borrowed pyjama shirt up and over his head, he inhales a lungful of Keith’s scent - a mixture of laundry detergent, sweat and shampoo - and oh, good, that’s going to kickstart his lizard brain now, that’s convenient, he’s only got to sit next to the guy all fucking day.

Lance wastes at least sixteen of his twenty allotted minutes in the shower after that.

Okay, so it’s not entirely, like, you know. He spends at least three solid minutes scouring Keith’s bathroom cupboards under the pretence of waiting for the water to heat up, which he knows it doesn’t need to. It's mostly medical supplies, extra body wash. He's stockpiling, Lance thinks, a security measure - that is, something done to feel secure. You have to know you're staying in one place to do that. You also have to be unsure about your ability to replace the shit you need. Lance sees a box of condoms, reverts to his fourteen-year-old self, and slams the drawer shut before opening it again, just to, you know, check if they're opened. They're not. So that's - that's whatever. Another two minutes goes to squinting at his own reflection, prodding at the honest to God bite mark left on his shoulder. There’s a whole sixty seconds where he loses time staring at the falling water, his brain stuck on the distance between the act of standing in front of the shower and actually getting into the shower, exhaustion sweeping over him. And it takes him three to wash his hair. So, you know. Compartmentalisation over time management. You win some, you lose some.

He’s towelling off his hair when he hears the apartment door hiss open, unlocking.

“Don’t come in,” he yells through the door, ignoring the upwards pitch of his voice, not sure why he suddenly sounds so panicked, only he does and feels it to match. There’s a pause. Lance swears he can feel Keith physically hesitate on the other side, in the time it takes Lance to scramble for the other towel, which is ridiculous given everything and also the literal locked door between them, but there it is.

And oh, it had _better_ be Keith. Lance doesn’t have it in him to come up with excuses in front of Krolia right now.

“I - I wasn’t planning to?” Keith calls back through the door.

“Okay, good.”

Lance lets out a breath, securing the towel around his own hips. It’s still damp, so Keith hadn’t been out that long when Lance woke, which is strange - Lance thought Keith always took longer on calls to Shiro, lighting up to match the screen’s glare whenever a call got patched through.

Lance takes a deep breath and opens the door on the count of three. Keith is hovering on the other side, takes a step back even though the door swings inwards, and blinks at Lance for a second.

“Morning,” Lance says, after a moment, because Keith’s gaze seems glued to the bite mark on Lance’s shoulder. Lance can literally see the realisation clicking into focus in Keith’s head, which is kind of hilarious but also -

“You’re running late,” is what finally falls out of Keith’s mouth. He blinks again.

“I overslept,” Lance counters, crossing his arms across his chest. “Why, are you surprised?”

Oh, man, is Keith going red again? Keith doesn’t back up any further, so Lance ends up stepping around him, trying to breathe through the way the fresh tension in the air is halfway to smothering him. _Shit,_ Lance thinks to himself, _shit._ This would be the ideal point to say, like, something. He’s not sure what but - something.

“Also, dude, so - so do you seriously not own something to dry your hair with?” is what he comes up with, which isn’t his best line, but it’s better than all the other options crowding his mouth, things like _you look really pretty when you get that red_ or _so I was wondering how soon we could schedule a repeat, how’s the next hour looking_ or _hahahaha wasn’t that weird! Unless you are, in fact, equally still up for getting down some more_ or _you’re really hot when you come_ or -

Or something even worse, like _thank you._

“I have another towel somewhere?” Keith offers, and he’s still staring fixedly at Lance, and he’s not giving Lance a lot to work with here, but, you know, it’s Keith. Lance wasn’t expecting a soliloquy. But still -

“It’s fine,” Lance says instead of literally anything else his brain is spitting out at him, “I should go back to my room where I have, you know. Clothes. And meds. I should take those.”

Oh, boy, he should really take his fucking meds. If this is what he’s like right now, he needs all the help he can get today.     

“You could borrow some of mine,” Keith says, and it takes Lance a moment to realise Keith is meaning clothes, because, yeah, he’s pretty sure Keith isn’t hiding a stash of Methyldexam XL out on a planet Lance hadn’t ever sent foot on until, like, a month ago.

“Uh,” Lance starts with, “I don’t know if you noticed last night, but like - I don’t exactly fit your stuff.”

“I noticed,” Keith says. For a moment, when they look at each other, the delicate thread of it joining them, Lance thinks about it, really thinks about it. About how Keith’s clothes - when he’d brought them out of a drawer and put them into Lance’s hands so Lance could sleep in them - had been worn soft and stretched a little too big in the shoulders, how it had felt like it was draping and settling against his skin after he pulled it over his head. Acclimatising to him, taking shape even though there wasn’t any tech in them. In the present, a single bead of water slips down Lance’s spine, finding the ridge and gliding down the bone. Lance looks away and the moment snaps.

“I really should, you know - I’m running late.”

Echoing Keith’s own words back to him seems to break Keith out of whatever crisis he’s having. He blinks at Lance, all big, pretty eyes, and now Lance has a distinct and accurate memory of them all glossy and half-lidded, and okay, yup, we’re back there in his brain now -

Keith is nodding hurriedly, and saying something, Lance tunes back in and in enough time to actually catch the end of Keith’s sentence, thank fuck.

“Yeah, yeah, that’s - you should, yeah.”

And then Keith just has to go and bite his own lip, because - like, is he doing this on purpose? Is this deliberate? Would it being deliberate make it somehow better?

Lance, very wisely, bolts. He makes it halfway down the corridor before realising he’s -

Okay, he’s not exactly sure of his way back. To his own rooms.

“Down the corridor and to the left,” he hears from behind him, and he refuses to look over his shoulder. Keith’s voice tells him enough about the face he’s pulling right now, and Lance is still in the fucking towel, so -

_Did you know you have dimples, like, right above your ass?_

“Sure! Thanks, dude!” Lance says, faux-brightly, hoisting the towel up a notch, and does not run. It’s a brisk walk. It’s _running-adjacent_.  

 

*

 

So, all in all, on review - that could have gone better. The post-orgasm section, anyway. The part directly pre- and mid-orgasm had been, you know -

Repeatable. Lance would be okay with repeating. Lance dresses quickly, slams back his meds, and slips out the door. Maybe on the walk to the briefing or whatever, he can get his head in gear and get it together, you know? That would be nice.

“Good morning, Lance,” Krolia says, stepping out from a side hallway and falling into step with him. Lance absolutely does not yelp.

Krolia snorts, which is such a deeply Keith - and also deeply insulting - reaction that Lance just stares at her for a second. She raises her eyebrows.

“Sorry,” she offers, not sounding like it in the slightest, “Did I startle you?”

“It’s fine! I’m fine. It’s all good.”

Krolia makes a vague humming sound in response, which could mean anything, couldn’t it? The rest of the walk to the briefing room is in silence. Lance’s brain is scrambling, but honestly, Krolia seems pretty content to just not talk - another way she is clearly Keith’s mom. The thing is, it’s only low-key awkward when this kind of encounter happens, usually, because he knows Krolia and she knows him. It’s just the throwing of Keith, and Keith and Lance together as a limited time only combo deal, and how she’s literally a spy so has probably guessed already - you know what, Lance is valid. This is valid discomfort. It’s also nothing on the expression Keith pulls when they round the corner and he sees Lance stood with his mom. Christ, can not even one of them have some chill today? It’s not going to be Lance, so he’s designating that to Keith. He’s decided.

Only Keith doesn’t seem to have gotten the memo on that one, because he looks like a spooked kitten, head snapping from Lance to Krolia and back.

“So,” Lance says, too loudly, trying to take control of the situation before, God forbid, someone act weirder than they already are doing, “How about that whole trial by combat thing, huh? We should probably, uh, plan for that. I mean, in case it’s happening?”

“The Council came through with their decision an hour ago,” Krolia tells them. “I already told Keith -”

“Lance hasn’t seen me yet this morning,” Keith cuts in.

“So it’s happening, then,” Lance says, because he doesn’t have time to unpack that whole conveyor belt of baggage thrown at him between _I already told Keith_ and _Lance hasn’t seen me yet._ “What did Shiro have to say about it?”

There’s a silence. In the space of that silence, Lance realises vaguely that he should maybe explain to Krolia how he knows Keith has spoken to Shiro if they haven’t seen each other, then realises that trying to explain would look suspicious, then dedicates a few moments to feeling stung about the whole thing and about how Keith is looking fixedly over Lance’s shoulder, right up until Lance thinks about what he just asked him and about how Keith often replies with evasion over an outright lie, since he’s so bad at them. The dread - which is familiar, which is comfortable, settling into the pit of Lance’s stomach lining like a second home - takes a fresh, new twist. Doesn’t it suck that after these years, Lance is still capable of being startled by bad news?

“Keith,” Lance asks him, “You told Shiro, right? Like, it came up? You did mention to him about how we’re battling to the death?”

“You can petition for it to be first blood,” Krolia interrupts. “I’ve already filed for that with the Council. Ennor is likely going to request to the death, but the petitions are judged based on the evidence available by the Council, so -”

“Great,” Lance says, “Wonderful. Space bureaucracy. But _did Keith tell Shiro about this_?”   

“I couldn’t work it into the conversation,” Keith informs them, like that isn’t a completely bizarre thing for Keith to personally say.

“What? Are you serious? Are you seriously - since when did you care about working things in at the appropriate moment?” Lance knows the air quotes he’s making might be a tad dramatic, but also, _come on._

“He was upset,” Keith bites out, “At me. And then he hung up on me, and I - I can’t get through. He’s blocking my calls or something, alright?”

“Okay. What did you say to him?”

“I didn’t say anything to him!” Keith says, which is both factually incorrect and likely also incorrect in any kind of loose interpretation of _anything._

“Look,” Lance finds himself saying, gritting his teeth, because Keith does look genuinely miserable at the thought, and he doesn’t actually actively enjoy making Keith look miserable. “That sounds like - I’m sorry, but we still have to - we should try and call him again. Maybe he’ll pick up if I call?”

He doesn’t ask in front of Krolia what kind of conversation could have Takashi Shirogane refusing to hear out the man who saved his life, like, easily four or five times. That seems like it’s going to be a touchy subject. Maybe shelve that one for later. Or never, if at all possible? Never won’t be possible, will it? Damn it.

Speaking of touchy subjects:

“We could also call Princess Allura, if necessary,” Krolia interrupts again, and she must see the look Keith is giving her, right? Because then Krolia turns to Lance, her eyes glowing and very serious. “I know that might be uncomfortable for you, Lance, but it also might be the only sensible option left.”

 _Might be_ uncomfortable?

“I’d rather we didn’t, thanks,” Lance hears himself saying distantly, very clipped and brittle on the consonants.

“I’d rather not watch my son and his friend go into a ring with a traitor either,” Krolia retorts. “Thanks.”

Ouch.

“Okay, point taken.” The point would’ve been taken without the sarcasm, but yeah. “There’s a ring?”

“There is an element of the theatrical,” Krolia says, at the same time Keith turns to Lance and goes, “Didn’t you read the link I sent you?”

“No, because I was _busy_ ,” Lance replies, holding eye contact with Keith for as long and as meaningfully as he dares. Keith breaks first.

“It’s more of a hectagon,” he mumbles finally.  

“Brilliant,” Lance says, “Yes, fabulous, I’m sure that’ll make a great difference to being conscripted gladiators.”

He definitely notices the look Krolia and Keith exchange this time.

“Guys, don’t do that. I’m right here. It’s creepy.”

“Don’t do what?” Keith says, arching an eyebrow. Him and Krolia are still just staring at each other, unblinking, as though communicating via telepathy or something. Oh, no. Maybe they can? At this point, Lance wouldn’t be surprised.   

“This,” Lance clarifies, gesturing between them. “Stop third-wheeling me in my own upcoming demise, yeah?”

That gets their attention.

“I have no intention to let either of you die,” Krolia repeats, pulling her gaze away from her only son. She reaches out absently and Keith grabs hold of her hand for a second, squeezing it before letting go.

Abruptly, Lance feels very homesick.  

“Yeah, well, the road to hell and all that, right?”

“No,” Krolia replies, “I don’t follow. Who said anything about a road to hell?”

“It’s a metaphor,” Lance explains. “An Earth metaphor. It’s like, the road to hell is paved with good intentions - you know what, we can table the explanation, I’ll go through it later. What I’m saying is what are we actually doing?”  

“I thought we could eat breakfast first,” Krolia informs him, then turns to look at Keith, who shrugs.

“I could eat. Lance?”

Lance’s stomach growls, effectively deciding for him. Following them both through the maze of corridors, he’s struck by how bewildering the last day has been, by how Keith looks tired, by how exactly Lance had tired him out. Lance stares down at his feet, aware how close he just came to tripping, looks up to see Keith and Krolia’s heads tipped close together again in conversation.

Keith and Krolia walk the same, he notices, all rolling, purposeful gait and small, precise, economic movements. He wonders if he still has his mother’s smile, his father’s eyes, if the bones of Veronica’s face - that Lance looks like he borrowed just for a second to copy like fourth-grade homework, that set them together instead of apart in Garrison photographs - if any of it is still recognisable as inherited, when he himself is so altered from the inside out.

If he’s not where he came from anymore, how can he ever go back? If he can’t go back, where else is left for him in the universe?

Surreptitiously, head ducked, he slides his phone out of his pocket, thumbs down the most recent messages and starts typing.

 

_hey mama u know i love u right??_

 

He hits send and looks up to the entrance of the canteen and Krolia’s watchful eyes, locked right onto him.

“Yes, ma’am,” he says automatically, and she smiles wide, like Keith but lopsided.

“I didn’t say anything,” she says, and peels off towards a group of Blade members. It makes Lance feel better, noticing how they all straighten up the second they spot her approaching.

“Not a fucking word,” Lance mutters to Keith, leaning across him to get to the trays.

“Wasn’t gonna.”

“Liar.”

“She likes you, you know,” Keith adds, conversationally, holding out his sealed protein ration hopefully towards Lance. Lance sighs - he doesn’t even like the raisin-bread flavour Keith’s offering that much, but he knows he got lychee-and-honey, which is Keith’s favourite, and -

And -

Why not? Why not just -

He hands it over. Keith smiles. For a moment, something in Lance settles down and goes real calm, real fucking quiet, the space in his head transformed to white noise.

 

In retrospect, that should have been a hint right there.

 

*

 

It takes another two hours for them to talk about it.

First, there’s yet another meeting. Given it’s just confirming the findings of the Council, it’s surprisingly boring, being told for the fifth time that Lance is going to be fighting for his life in another eight days. Lance chews the end of his stylus until Keith reaches out and bats it out of his mouth, sending it clattering to the desk.

“You’ll - I don't know, electrocute yourself or something,” Keith mutters, “Careful. Don’t want you risking that last brain cell.”

“Proud of that one, are you?” Lance whispers back, leaning over to win his third game running of noughts and crosses. Keith looks down at it, briefly appalled at himself - which he should be, honestly - before remembering to be smug again.

“Oh, you have no idea.”

It doesn’t come up until training, which is Keith’s solution for any kind of downtime. At least they have something to be training for, Lance sighs, finding himself following Keith without being asked. The simulation is dimmer lighting than the one they cut their teeth on in the Castle of Lions, the walls grey and somehow undulating. Lance decides quickly to not look at them too long, it’s too distracting, focusing on the bow of Keith’s shoulders as he hunches over the keypad, programming in the simulation. With a gentle susurration, a case of weapons shifts out of the previously blank wall. Lance grins, despite himself. That’s never not gonna be cool.

“Okay, so these are -”

“Weapons previously cleared for trial by combat here on New Daibazaal,” Keith says, joining him in front of the display.

“There’s only eight,” Lance points out. Keith hums in agreement, rather than any kind of sarcasm, so Lance glances at him out of the corner of his eyes.

Keith is frowning down at the case.

“Keith,” Lance repeats himself, “There’s only eight options. That means there’s only been, what, four trials? Since the planet was founded?”

“Three,” Keith corrects softly. “There was two defendants the first time. Just like us. It’s what established the precedent.”  

Lance takes a moment to take all of that in. There’s a sickle scythe directly in front of him. A spiked mace. A pair of miniature axes, linked by a dangerously delicate-looking chain.

“Keith,” Lance points out, urgently now, “Keith. There’s no gun. There's not even a blaster, or -”

Keith is coming to the same realisation, it seems.

“Are we not allowed to use anything that hasn’t already been brought in?”

“I don’t know,” Keith says, eyes huge in his face - looking truly panicked for the first time since the word trial was even mentioned. “I - I don’t know, Lance.”

“Cool,” Lance decides, “So we’re even more fucked than I thought we were.”

He grabs at the first thing he saw - the scythe. He’s pretty sure the handle is made out of bone, but he’s too annoyed and there’s too much else going on for him to even _consider_ scheduling in an emotional reaction to that.

“Alright then.”

He clicks his tongue at Keith, who is stood there, still frozen, still staring at the apparent lack of a Marmora dagger, or a sword, or -

“Go on,” Lane coaxes, after a moment of silence, “Pick your weapon, let’s get going -”

“I don’t think we should go through with this,” is what Keith replies. He looks over at Lance, deadly serious in his expression. “Lance, I - I don’t think this is a fight we can win.”

“It’s never been a fight we can win, but we still won, like, sixty percent of them.”

“No, I mean - Lance, I think someone’s trying to make sure we can’t win.”

Lance thinks about it for a moment.

“Fuck,” he says, “You’re right? Fuck. You’re _right_.”

They stare at each other, wide-eyed with realisation, until the simulation starts bleeping out a message through the speakers.

 

CANCEL SIMULATION?

 

“I should -” Keith says. “I’ll just -”

He makes an abortive movement towards the monitor.

“No, let’s do it,” Lance says, “You wanna pick something already?”

 

CANCEL SIMULATION?

 

“Restart simulation,” Lance says, slowly and clearly, “Same diagnostics. Earth minute delay.”

 

ACKNOWLEDGED. SIMULATION RESTARTING IN 60, 59, 58 -

 

“Lance,” Keith says quietly. They’re still staring at each other. Lance’s mind is whirring, a small corner of it snagged on how the faintly flashing monitor lights plunge Keith’s face in and out of relief. It reminds Lance of the way that stupid violet moonlight last night had streamed through the window, dripped down over Keith’s clavicle to pool in the hollow of his throat like liquid, glinting there, mixed in with sweat, how it had turned him, a known quantity, into something outside the realm of Lance’s experience -

“Let’s try it. It’s never been a fight we could win, so let’s try it, Keith.”

“Lance.”

“Go on, _pick_ something, we’re on a time limit here. I don’t know about you, my dude, but I’m - I am so fucking angry right now, because we did not ask for any of this. But it’s always still happening, isn’t it? It’s always still fucking _happening_.”

 

SIMULATION RESTARTING IN 45, 44, 43 -

 

“You know, I never wanted to be a soldier. And they know that. Deep down, they know we didn’t pick any of this. I was going to be a pilot. I was going to be a cargo pilot. And they always think they stand a chance because of it. What’s six fucking kids against the universe, right?”   

 

SIMULATION RESTARTING IN 32, 31, 30 -

 

And then Keith nods, sharp, jaw set.

“We’re not kids anymore,” he agrees, and picks up the axes, one in each hand. He shifts into balance, spreading his feet apart, testing the weight of them.

They grin at each other, all teeth.

“There you are,” Lance says, staring at Keith, all danger. “See? Look at that. Look at you. They picked the wrong people to fuck with, didn’t they?”

 

SIMULATION RESTARTING IN 21, 19, 18 -

 

*

So it isn’t until their third run of the simulation they actually get anywhere with, you know, the other thing. Lance’s suit is sticking to him, sweat in his eyes, and when he licks his lips, he can taste salt. They’re syncing up again when they fight, slowly but surely, fumbles with new weapons aside - and it’s like slipping back into a familiar skin.

“I missed you,” he finds himself admitting to Keith, who sort of scrunches his nose up in confusion, eyes gleaming under the heavy draw of his eyebrows. “Come on, you know what I mean.”

“I do?” Keith, like his question, tries to floor him. Lance makes it out still standing.

“Yeah, yeah,” Lance replies, “It’s not like - it’s been a while since we -”

“I saw you this morning.”

Keith’s so matter of fact about it, swinging one of the axes by its chain, that Lance is blindsided by the apparent mood-shift.

“Ah, so you admit it now! I was beginning to worry I hadn’t even made an impression on you - like, wow, do you treat all your other guys so coldly?”

It’s half-genuine, and Lance can hear it in his own voice because his emotions are a dirty fucking traitor. Keith’s face drops all of a sudden, horrified. The chain goes slack, the axe plummeting from the air, the chain snapping into place to leave it dangling.

“I didn’t forget.”

Look. Listen. It’s not that Lance, like, feels he needs to be praised after the fact. Okay, no, that’s a lie, he totally does, it’s a thing, everyone has a thing, it’s no big deal - but it’s beside the point. The point is, he’ll take a simple acknowledgement at this juncture, you know? It’d just settle him, or whatever part of him is all churned up inside, painfully aware of how much of himself he’d exposed - for all he’d been on top of Keith, because he’d known even then Keith was letting him, leaning back into it to give Lance some fragile sense of control even as he was unravelling. And Keith had been better than him, steadier than him, less bewildered by all the small differences of being with, you know, a guy, the concept being a line in the sand Keith had stepped over already - ahead of Lance again, and when he reached for him he pretended not to notice how much Lance was shaking -

See, Lance has always wondered if he wants too much. That the sheer weight of his need plucks at the people he loves, sinking them under with him. But he can’t get into that with Keith, not less than a day since -

He’s trying to be cool here, okay? So he goes with his best solution, the one to wipe Keith’s current expression off his face: Lance backtracks.

“Hey, dude, I was kidding. Don’t pull that face! I didn’t it mean it like - look, my bad, okay?”  

“ _Was_ it bad?” Keith blurts out, after a while, which is not - okay, that’s not what Lance expected, as far as responses. He’s looking at Lance from under his eyelashes, which makes it sound like he’s flirting - when in reality he’s just staring at the floor, gaze flickering up to Lance like anxiety personified. At first, Lance is confused by the question, and then realisation hits him like a sucker punch - something he nearly fails to duck out of the way of when Keith swings towards him, half-heartedly getting back into the simulation. Lance stumbles out of the way, landing on his hands, scrambling to his feet before Keith can take advantage of him halfway to the floor -

And is he really asking that? Is Keith really asking him if Lance _enjoyed_ last night? Is he for _real_?

“Is that a - are you serious?”

“I don’t know!” Keith snaps back, backflipping out of the way, putting Lance on eye-level with the sharp alphabet of his hips for a split-second. Lance swallows. “Look, forget it, I was just -”

“Just?”

“Just - ugh, forget it.”

Only Lance has absolutely no intention of forgetting anything.

“Sorry, which orgasm do you want me to forget again?” Lance asks, faux-sweetly. “Yours or mine?”

“What?” Keith actually stumbles backwards himself this time, spooked. Lance takes the chance, advancing on him.

“You’ve been acting skittish as hell all day,” Lance says, circling him now, holding the scythe. His skin sticks to the handle a little when he shifts his grip. “So, I’m asking you. Do you want me to forget how I made you come, or do you want me to forget how you made me -”

“Wait, did I forget your birthday or something?” Keith asks, looking panicked. Looking like that’s what he should be panicking over. “Is that why you’re - is it today? Isn’t your birthday still the 28th? Are you mad because I -”

Okay, what the fuck? Lance moves the scythe’s blade out of Keith’s range, not liking how that whole position feels in context anymore.

“No! You didn’t forget my birthday! It’s not for another four days!”

“Then why are you being weird at me?” Keith has the gall to be perfectly sincere about this, Lance can see it in the whole wide-eyed thing he’s got going on right now.

“I’m being weird?” Lance says, “You’re being weird. You’re acting all - it’s weird, you’re the weird one!”

“I’m the weird one? You were literally running away from me this morning!”

“You were acting like everything’s normal!”

“Do you not want me to act like everything’s normal?”

“No, because we fucked and that’s not normal for us!” Lance is yelling now, and he’s not sure he meant to yell but there it is, and the look on Keith’s face now is - yep, that sure is something, but Lance is riding the high of his own moral high ground right now, because he has to or he’s going to want the floor to open up and swallow him. “And now you’re acting like it never even happened -” Keith opens his mouth but Lance doesn’t even give him a chance. “Which, you know, your mom was here, I get it, okay? I get it. But I’m not - this isn’t like - I’m maybe not like whoever - the other people you’ve been with, because I don’t do that. I don’t think I can act like that.”

Suddenly drained, Lance drops the scythe to the floor. It clatters, so loudly Lance almost apologises and picks it back up, but he stays still instead, pinned by the look Keith is giving him. It’s assessing, and Lance feels _seen_ , and it’s _mortifying._

Neither of them move.

“Okay,” Keith says simply, eventually.

“Okay?” Lance echoes. “I just said all of that, and all you’re gonna say to me is okay?”

“Yeah,” Keith replies, “Because I heard what you were saying? And you don’t like me acting like this, so I won’t?”

“Huh,” Lance, the anger passing through him like a bullet, feels a sudden urge to sit down. “That - that was - that’s easier than I expected.”

“But I don’t know you. What you said, I - I don’t.”

“You do. We do know each other.”

“No, I don’t know you like this. When we're -”

“Then try,” Lance interrupts him, partially to cut off whatever Keith was going to label them. The idea of putting words onto this is - 

Yeah, Lance is not ready for that. 

“I am trying.”

“Try harder.”

“ _I’m trying_ ,” Keith repeats, frustrated, and kisses him, dropping the axes and moving forward in the same movement, trapping Lance’s face between his hands.

It’s a fast kiss, closed-mouth, punctuation to prove a point. Exhibit A. It still leaves Lance’s lips electrified - stinging but good, the luxury of expensive moisturiser melting into dehydrated skin. Then Keith steps back, or tries to: he catches his foot on the linking chain between the two dropped axes. For a second, he hovers, in that midway point between floating and gravity, and then Lance snatches hold of him, pulling him gently back onto his feet.

And with that, the mood changes. Catch and release. This is the easy part for them. This is a part Lance knows how to play.

“Wow,” Lance says, letting go of Keith, “What was that, five seconds of skin to skin contact? Colour me convinced.”

“I didn’t see you complaining last night,” Keith hisses, but Lance can see how infectious the relief is, how Keith’s struggling not to smile.  

“Yeah, but I feel like you worked for that praise last night,” Lance can feel himself smiling. It’s probably insufferable. “That, just now? That was performative at best.”

“You think you can do better?”

“Sure I can,” Lance says, and Keith tips his mouth down towards him.

Lance would say something sarcastic - he’s going to another time, he swears - only he’s already leaning up, eyes falling shut, the sound of him licking into Keith’s mouth loud in the hush. He drags it out, the start of it, feeling his stomach readying for the drop: Keith stood so still and pliant, a faint hum under his breath, that it’s as if Lance is stood over a gasoline sea, a single match burning down between his fingers. The knowledge that he’s buying time, not a better outcome. Lance doesn’t even notice the bigger ploy until he feels, rather than hears, the sound of Keith bringing his boot heel down on the ground, the faint sound of contact as Keith flips the scythe up from the floor and it snaps into his hand as though magnetised.

When he opens his eyes, Keith is ready, the scythe blade pointed at Lance and gleaming, the handle stark and pale against Keith’s gloves.

For a moment, Lance just blinks. It gives Keith the seconds-worth of advantage to bring the scythe up closer, the blade hovering just in front of Lance’s throat.  

“End simulation,” Keith says, unbearably smug. It's so painfully hot that Lance’s body is frozen, everything gone white-hot.

 

SIMULATION ENDED.  

 

“What was it you were saying again, Lance?” Keith asks him. “About trying harder? Sure you can keep up if I do?”

It’s so perfectly Keith that Lance feels caught off-guard by the rush of feeling through him. It’s when Lance laughs that Keith’s face wavers, uncertain, the taut line of his mouth slackening even as his eyebrows start to tighten into a frown.

“It wasn’t bad,” Lance tells him, somewhat belatedly, he realises. “You’re amazing. It wasn’t bad.” Then, to save them both from the uncomfortable prospect of that confession lingering in the air too long, he carries on. “You know, if you wanted the scythe, you could’ve just asked. You know, asking nicely? Ever heard of it? They cover it in, like, kindergarten -”

“Oh, so how come you never figured it out then?”

 

In retrospect, this - literally _all of this_ \- should have also been -

Look, _hint_ isn’t really the right word. It’s not like you could make a quilt out of all the red flags yet.

But you could be getting started.


End file.
